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George Eliot

George Eliot Quotes

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Famous George Eliot Quotes

“Poor dog! I've a strange feeling about the dumb things as if they wanted to speak, and it was a trouble to 'em because they couldn't. I can't help being sorry for the dogs always, though perhaps there's no need. But they may well have more in them than they know how to make us understand, for we can't say half what we feel, with all our words.”

IfsKnowsNeedsFeelsWellsMayI CanHelpingFeelingsWantedSpeakPoorHalfKnow HowTroubleDogStrangeSorryDumbEmsOur WordsBeing SorryDumb Things
Book:Complete Works Of George Eliot
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“Love is such a simple thing when we have only one-and-twenty summers and a sweet girl of seventeen trembles under our glance, as if she were a bud first opening her heart with wondering rapture to the morning. Such young unfurrowed souls roll to meet each other like two velvet peaches that touch softly and are at rest; they mingle as easily as two brooklets that ask for nothing but to entwine themselves and ripple with ever-interlacing curves in the leafiest hiding-places.”

IfsLoveFirstsHeartTwoSoulYoungGirlAsksSimpleLove IsWonderMorningLove YouYouthSweetSummerTwentiesOpeningHidingGlancesCurvesBudSimple ThingsRaptureRippleVelvetSeventeenPeachesHiding PlaceSweet Girl
Book:Adam Bede: Top Novelist Focus
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“I've had my say out, and I shall be the' easier for't all my life. There's no pleasure i' living, if you're to be corked up forever, and only dribble your mind out by the sly, like a leaky barrel.”

IfsMindPleasureOpinionForeverEasierBarrelsSlyDribble
Book:George Eliot Collection: Middlemarch, Adam Bede, Silas Marner, The Lifted Veil, and The Mill on the Floss
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“I can't abide to see men throw away their tools i' that way, the minute the clock begins to strike, as if they took no pleasure i' their work, and was afraid o' doing a stroke too much.... I hate to see a man's arms drop down as if he was shot, before the clock's fairly struck, just as if he'd never a bit o' pride and delight in's work. The very grindstone 'ull go on turning a bit after you loose it.”

IfsMenWayI CanHateBitsWorkPleasureToo MuchMinutesPrideArmsGoes OnShotsToolsI HateDelightStrikesClockStrokesGrindstone
Book:Four Novels of George Eliot
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“I might mention all the divine charms of a bright spring day, but if you had never in your life utterly forgotten yourself in straining your eyes after the mounting lark, or in wandering through the still lanes when the fresh-opened blossoms fill them with a sacred silent beauty like that of fretted aisles, where would be the use of my descriptive catalogue?”

IfsStillsUseMightWould BeEyeDivineSpringSacredSilentForgottenWanderCharmLanesAisleCataloguesLarksSpring Day
Book:Adam Bede ... Tenth edition
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“I've seen pretty clear, ever since I was a young un, as religion's something else besides notions. It isn't notions sets people doing the right things--it's feelings. It's the same with the notions in religion as it is with math'matics--a man may be able to work problems straight off in's head as he sits by the fire and smokes his pipe; but if he has to make a machine or a building, he must have a will and a resolution, and love something else better than his own ease.”

PeopleIfsMenMayFeelingsProblemAbleYoungClearFireBuildingMachinesAnd LoveNotionMathSmokeEaseRight ThingResolutionPipeDoing The Right Thing
Book:Four Novels of George Eliot
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“People are so ridiculous with their illusions, carrying their fool's caps unawares, thinking their own lies opaque while everybody else's are transparent, making themselves exceptions to everything, as if when all the world looked yellow under a lamp they alone are rosy.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWorldLyingFoolIllusionRidiculousExceptionYellowLampsTransparentCapsRosyOpaqueMiddlemarch
Book:Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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“Fancy what a game of chess would be if all the chessmen had passions and intellects, more or less small and cunning; if you were not only uncertain about your adversary's men, but a little uncertain also about your own. You would be especially likely to be beaten, if you depended arrogantly on your mathematical imagination, and regarded your passionate pieces with contempt. Yet this imaginary chess is easy compared with a game a man has to play against his fellow-men with other fellow-men for instruments.”

IfsMenLittlesPlayWould BePassionGamesEasyImaginationPiecesFellowsInstrumentsPassionateIntellectChessMathematicalFancyContemptHuman ConditionImaginaryUncertainBeatenCunningFellow ManAdversaries
Author:George Eliot
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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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“When we are young we think our troubles a mighty business - that the world is spread out expressly as a stage for the particular drama of our lives and that we have a right to rant and foam at the mouth if we are crossed. I have done enough of that in my time.”

IfsThinkingWorldDoneEnoughYoungOur LivesTroubleStageParticularDramaMouthsSpreadMy TimeFoamRant
Book:Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)
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“I shall be so glad if you will tell me what to read. I have been looking into all the books in the library at Offendene, but there is nothing readable. The leaves all stick together and smell musty. I wish I could write books to amuse myself, as you can! How delightful it must be to write books after one's own taste instead of reading other people's! Home-made books must be so nice.”

PeopleIfsWritingHas BeensMadeBookHomeTogetherReadingWishNiceTasteSticksLibrarySmellGladDelightful
Book:Daniel Deronda: Top Novelist Focus
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“...there's never a garden in all the parish but what there's endless waste in it for want o' somebody as could use everything up. It's what I think to myself sometimes, as there need nobody run short o' victuals if the land was made the most on, and there was never a morsel but what could find it's way to a mouth.”

IfsThinkingWayWantNeedsMadeSometimesUseRunningLandWasteMouthsGardenEndlessParish
Book:Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)
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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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“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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“I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.”

IfsThinkingWantShouldIdeasSeemsEffortBrainMusicGoes OnMusic IsShould HaveFilledMusicalMortalsPlentyIf I CouldLimbsWithout MusicMusic LifeMusic Is LifeMusic Is My LifeMusical LifeMusic And HealingMusic HealingLife Without Music
Book:Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)
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