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George Eliot

George Eliot Quotes

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Famous George Eliot Quotes

“O may I join the choir invisible of those immortal dead who live again in minds made better by their presence; live in pulses stirred to generosity, in deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn for miserable aims that end with self, in thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, and with their mild persistence urge men's search to vaster issues.”

MenMindMayMadeEndsSelfNightStarsIssuesAimDeedsInvisibleMiserableGenerosityPersistenceUrgesImmortalDaringSublimeScornPulseChoirPierceRectitude
Author:George Eliot
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“One has to spend so many years in learning how to be happy. I am just beginning to make some progress in the science, and I hope to disprove Young's theory that "as soon as we have found the key of life it opes the gates of death." Every year strips us of at least one vain expectation, and teaches us to reckon some solid good in its stead. I never will believe that our youngest days are our happiest. What a miserable augury for the progress of the race and the destination of the individual if the more matured and enlightened state is the less happy one!”

IfsYearsBelieveStatesYoungFoundIndividualRaceTeachProgressTheoryKeysExpectationsMiserableVainEnlightenedDestinationGatesMaturedHow To Be Happy
Book:The George Eliot Letters: 1836-1851
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“What deep and worthy love is so, whether of woman or child, or art or music. Our caresses, our tender words, our still rapture under the influence of autumn sunsets, or pillared vistas, or calm majestic statues, or Beethoven symphonies all bring with them the consciousness that they are mere waves and ripples in an unfathomable ocean of love and beauty; our emotion in its keenest moment passes from expression into silence, our love at its highest flood rushes beyond its object and loses itself in the sense of divine mystery.”

ChildrenArtStillsMomentsLosesLove IsEmotionConsciousnessSilenceMysteryInfluenceObjectsDivineExpressionOceanHighestMereCalmWaveWorthySunsetAutumnFloodOur LoveStatuesSymphonyRaptureRippleCaressMajesticForbidden LoveUnfathomableVistas
Book:George Eliot Collection: Middlemarch, Adam Bede, Silas Marner, The Lifted Veil, and The Mill on the Floss
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“A friend is one to whom one may pour out the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”

HeartMayHandsTogetherFriendshipKindnessKnowingAcceptanceBreathsBlowGentleGrainTrue FriendTrue FriendshipBest FriendMy FriendshipPositive MarriageFriend LoveMaking FriendsTrue Friend IsEasy FriendshipTrue Friendship And LifeBeing A True Friend
Author:George Eliot
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“I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.”

WorldLoveLifeMindHeartEnoughLightSilenceFlowerSpeechDearGravesRealmsNot SureSilence IsValentine's DayGift Of Love
Book:George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals
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“But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

WorldLifeHas BeensMightNumbersHalfGrowingEffectsIllDependentMight Have BeenTombsObscurityOwingMiddlemarch
Book:Middlemarch - A Study of Provincial Life -
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“Poor fellow! I think he is in love with you.' I am not aware of it. And to me it is one of the most odious things in a girl's life, that there must always be some supposition of falling in love coming between her and any man who is kind to her... I have no ground for the nonsensical vanity of fancying everybody who comes near me is in love with me.”

ThinkingMenKindFallGirlPoorLove YouFellowsFalling In LoveVanityNonsensicalSupposition
Book:Middlemarch
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“To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern, that no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel, that discernment is but a hand playing with finely-ordered variety on the chords of emotion--a soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling, and feeling flashes back as a new organ of knowledge.”

FeelsSoulFeelingsHandsEmotionQualityPoetVarietyShadeOrgansFlashChordsDiscernment
Book:Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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“Some discouragement, some faintness of heart at the new real future which replaces the imaginary, is not unusual, and we do not expect people to be deeply moved by what is not unusual. That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind, and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.”

PeopleIfsShouldHumansHeartRealFactsFeelingsWould BeLyingDiesGrowsSidesEmotionSilenceVisionMankindBearsElementsBeatsOrdinaryTragedyMovedHearingHuman LifeGrassUnusualImaginaryFrequencyDiscouragementSquirrelsHeart BeatCoarse
Author:George Eliot
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“Her future, she thought, was likely to be worse than her past, for after her years of contented renunciation, she had slipped back into desire and longing; she found joyless days of distasteful occupation harder and harder; she found the image of the intense and varied life she yearned for, and despaired of, becoming more and more importunate.”

YearsPastDesireFoundBecomingHarderLongingIntenseOccupationBecoming MoreRenunciationDistastefulImportunate
Book:The Mill on the Floss: Easyread Large Edition
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“Certainly the determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful. They were the mixed result of young and novel impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.”

StatesFeelingsBeautifulYoungSocialResultsNovelStruggleConditionsIllusionAspectErrorsImpulseImperfectGreat FaithGreat Feelings
Book:Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)
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