Quotessence
Home / Authors / George Eliot
George Eliot

George Eliot Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenIfsMayThinkingKnowsPeopleHumansLiteratureWorldLoveSoulSeemsMindLittlesMiddlemarchLifeShouldFeelingsWellsGiving

Famous George Eliot Quotes

“It is worth repeating that powerful imagination is not false outward vision, but intense inward representation, and a creative energy constantly fed by susceptibility to the veriest minutiæ of experience, which it reproduces and constructs in fresh and fresh wholes; not the habitual confusion of provable fact with the fictions of fancy and transient inclination, but a breadth of ideal association which informs every material object, every incidental fact with far-reaching memories and storied residues of passion, bringing into new light the less obvious relations to human existence.”

HumansFactsLightPassionEnergyImaginationMemoriesPowerfulExistenceFictionVisionCreativeObjectsMaterialsIdealsRelationObviousIntenseConfusionFancyReachingFedsAssociationInwardRepresentationConstructsInclinationHuman ExistenceHabitualTransientBreadthCreative EnergySusceptibility
Author:George Eliot
Create image

“In the chequered area of human experience the seasons are all mingled as in the golden age: fruit and blossom hang together; in the same moment the sickle is reaping and the seed is sprinkled; one tends the green cluster and another treads the wine-press. Nay, in each of our lives harvest and spring-time are continually one, until Death himself gathers us and sows us anew in his invisible fields.”

LifeHumansMomentsAgeTogetherOur LivesFieldsSpringAreasSeasonsGreenWinePressesFruitSeedsInvisibleGoldenHarvestHuman ExperienceGolden AgeClustersSpring Time
Book:Daniel Deronda
Create image

“The great river-courses which have shaped the lives of men have hardly changed; and those other streams, the life-currents that ebb and flow in human hearts, pulsate to the same great needs, the same great loves and terrors. As our thought follows close in the slow wake of the dawn, we are impressed with the broad sameness of the human lot, which never alters in the main headings of its history--hunger and labour, seed-time and harvest, love and death.”

MenLifeNeedsHumansHeartCoursesChangedFlowRiversHungerCurrentsTerrorSeedsDawnStreamsLabourBroadsImpressedOur ThoughtsHarvestHuman HeartGreat LoveHeadingsLife DeathSamenessLove And DeathEbb And Flow
Book:Romola: Top Novelist Focus
Create image

“Blessed influence of one true loving human soul on another! Not calculable by algebra, not deducible by logic, but mysterious, effectual, mighty as the hidden process by which the tiny seed is quickened, and bursts forth into tall stem and broad leaf, and glowing tasseled flower.”

LoveHumansSoulProcessInfluenceFlowerLogicBlessedSeedsTinyMysteriousTallBroadsStemLeafsHuman SoulGlowingAlgebra
Book:Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)
Create image

“O the anguish of that thought that we can never atone to our dead for the stinted affection we gave them, for the light answers we returned to their plaints or their pleadings, for the little reverence we showed to that sacred human soul that lived so close to us, and was the divinest thing God had given us to know!”

KnowsHumansLittlesSoulLightGivenAnswersSacredAffectionReverenceAnguishHuman SoulPleading
Book:Scenes of Clerical Life
Create image

“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)
Create image

“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
Create image

“There is much pain that is quite noiseless; and vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence. There are glances of hatred that stab and raise no cry of murder; robberies that leave man or woman for ever beggared of peace and joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer --committed to no sound except that of low moans in the night, seen in no writing except that made on the face by the slow months of suppressed anguish and early morning tears. Many an inherited sorrow that has marred a life has been breathed into no human ear.”

MenWritingHumansHas BeensMadePainFacesJoyNightPeaceSoundSecretExistenceMorningCryTearsMonthsSorrowLowsHatredEarsMurderRaisesMereCommittedAgonyGlancesAnguishVibrationsEarly MorningRobberySufferersHurryingNo PainPeace And JoyKept SecretsLife Is Pain
Author:George Eliot
Create image

“So deeply inherent is it in this life of ours that men have to suffer for each other's sins, so inevitably diffusive is human suffering, that even justice makes its victims, and we can conceive no retribution that does not spread beyond its mark in pulsations of unmerited pain.”

MenHumansDoePainSufferingJusticeSinMarkVictimSpreadThis LifeInherentRetributionHuman Suffering
Book:Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)
Create image

“No one who has ever known what it is to lose faith in a fellow-man whom he has profoundly loved and reverenced, will lightly say that the shock can leave the faith in the Invisible Goodness unshaken. With the sinking of high human trust, the dignity of life sinks too; we cease to believe in our own better self, since that also is part of the common nature which is degraded in our thought; and all the finer impulses of the soul are dulled.”

MenBelieveHumansSoulSelfLosesCommonKnownGoodnessHeartbreakDignityFellowsBetrayalInvisibleCeaseImpulseShockOur ThoughtsFellow ManAbandonmentSinking
Book:Wit and Wisdom of George Eliot
Create image

“Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas Ignorance is a blind giant who, let him but wax unbound, would make it a sport to seize the pillars that hold up the long-wrought fabric of human good, and turn all the places of joy as dark as a buried Babylon.”

HumansMayLongJoyTurnsSportsDarkKnowledgePowerIgnoranceConscienceBlindGiantsBuriedFabricPillarsKnowledge Is PowerScruplesBabylonUnbound
Book:Daniel Deronda
Create image

“Perspective, as its inventor remarked, is a beautiful thing. What horrors of damp huts, where human beings languish, may not become picturesque through aerial distance! What hymning of cancerous vices may we not languish over as sublimest art in the safe remoteness of a strange language and artificial phrase! Yet we keep a repugnance to rheumatism and other painful effects when presented in our personal experience.”

HumansMayArtBeautifulLanguageHuman BeingsEffectsStrangePerspectiveHorrorSafeDistancePainfulVicesPhrasesArtificialBeautiful ThingsInventorPersonal ExperiencesDampHutsPicturesqueLanguishRemotenessPerspective On Things
Book:Works of George Eliot ...: Daniel Deronda
Create image

“What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined - to strengthen each other - to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.”

LoveLifeFeelsHumansTwoSoulMemoriesFamilyMarriageGreaterRelationshipCommunicationRomanticDistanceSilentFlamesMatesWeddingSoulmateI Love YouHuman SoulLong DistanceUnspeakableDistance RelationshipWhat Is LoveLong Distance RelationshipMarriage LoveTime And LoveGreat MarriageRelationships With OthersWedding CeremonyHealthy RelationshipGreater ThingsRomantic Love YouYour SoulmateWedding VowLong Distance LoveLasting MarriageMarriage ProblemsHappy RelationshipTwo SoulsLong Distance RelationWedding PoetrySoulmate LoveGood Long Distance RelationshipMy Soul MateLong Distance Relationship LoveDistance LoveLove And DistanceGreat WeddingStrong Long Distance RelationshipLove And Long DistanceLong Distance True LoveMy SoulmateSad Long Distance RelationshipSweet Long Distance RelationshipRomantic MarriageYour My SoulmateMarriage SpeechCute RomanticFlames And LoveBridal ShowerReal ConnectionCouple LoveInspirational SoulmateSoulmates Best Friends50th Anniversary
Book:Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)
Create image

“The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.”

InspirationalHumansMotivationalLyingChoicesLiteratureGrowthPrinciplesSelf ImprovementDecision MakingStrongestSympathyFreedom Of ChoiceLife ChoicesMaking DecisionsMaking ChoicesPower Of ChoiceDecisions MadeDecisions You MakeMake The Right ChoiceNo SympathyMake The Right DecisionPersonal ChoiceChoices MadeChoices And DecisionsLife DecisionIntellectual GrowthLife And ChoicesWise ChoicesCompunctionPositive Choices
Author:George Eliot
Create image