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George Eliot

George Eliot Quotes

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Famous George Eliot Quotes

“The impulse to confession almost always requires the presence of a fresh ear and a fresh heart; and in our moments of spiritual need, the man to whom we have no tie but our common nature, seems nearer to us than mother, brother, or friend. Our daily familiar life is but a hiding of ourselves from each other behind a screen of trivial words and deeds, and those who sit with us at the same hearth, are often the farthest off from the deep human soul within us, full of unspoken evil and unacted good.”

MenNeedsHumansHeartSoulMomentsSeemsSpiritualLife IsMotherEvilCommonBehindsHe ManBrotherEarsDeedsScreensFamiliarImpulseTiesHidingConfessionHuman SoulUnspoken
Book:Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)
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“When the animals entered the Ark in pairs, one may imagine that allied species made much private remark on each other, and were tempted to think that so many forms feeding on the same store of fodder were eminently superfluous, as tending to diminish the rations.”

ThinkingMayMadeFormAnimalImagineSpeciesStoresPairsImagine ThatFeedingDiminishTemptedRemarksSuperfluousArkFodderRations
Book:Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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“What moments of despair that life would ever be made precious to me by the consciousness that I lived to some good purpose! It was that sort of despair that sucked away the sap of half the hours which might have been filled by energetic youthful activity: and the same demon tries to get hold of me again whenever an old work is dismissed and a new one is being meditated.”

TryingHas BeensMadeMomentsMightPurposeHoursHalfConsciousnessActivityDespairFilledDemonMight Have BeenEnergeticBeing MeSap
Book:George Eliot's Life, Complete: Top Novelist Focus
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“If people will be censors, let them weigh their words. I mean that the words were unfair by that disproportionateness of the condemnation, which everybody with some conscience must feel to be one of the great difficulties in denouncing a particular person. Every unpleasant dog is only one of many, but we kick him because he comes in our way, and there is always some want of distributive justice in the kicking.”

PeopleIfsWayWantFeelsMeanPersonsJusticeDogParticularConscienceDifficultyKicksUnfairKickingCondemnation
Book:Life and letters
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“... it is one of the gains of advancing age that the good of young creatures becomes a more definite intense joy to us. With that renunciation for ourselves which age inevitably brings, we get more freedom of soul to enter into the life of others; what we can never learn they will know, and the gladness which is a departed sunlight to us is rising with the strength of morning to them.”

KnowsSoulAgeYoungJoyMorningCreaturesGainsIntenseRisingSunlightDefiniteAdvancingLives Of OthersRenunciationGladnessDeparted
Book:Life and letters
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“The perpetual mourner -- the grief that can never be healed -- is innocently enough felt to be wearisome by the rest of the world. And my sense of desolation increases. Each day seems a new beginning -- a new acquaintance with grief.”

WorldEnoughSeemsFeltGriefIncreaseEach DayPerpetualNew BeginningsAcquaintanceHealedDesolationNew Acquaintances
Book:George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals
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