Quotessence
Home / Authors / George Eliot
George Eliot

George Eliot Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenIfsMayThinkingKnowsPeopleHumansLiteratureWorldLoveSoulSeemsMindLittlesMiddlemarchLifeShouldFeelingsWellsGiving

Famous George Eliot Quotes

“Is it due to excess of poetry or of stupidity that we are never weary of describing what King James called a woman's 'makdom and her fairnesse', never weary of listening to the twanging of the old Troubadour strings, and are comparatively uninterested in that other kind of 'makdom and fairnesse' which must be wooed with industrious thought and patient renunciation of small desires? In the story of this passion, too, the development varies: sometimes it is the glorious marriage, sometimes frustration and final parting. And not seldom the catastrophe is bound up with the other passion, sung by the Troubadours.”

PassionCallingFrustrationVocationMiddlemarch
Book:Middlemarch
Create image

“It was said of him, that Lydgate could do anything he liked, but he had certainly not yet liked to do anything remarkable. He was a vigorous animal with a ready understanding, but no spark had yet kindled in him an intellectual passion; knowledge seemed to him a very superficial affair, easily mastered: judging from the conversation of his elders, he had apparently got already more than was necessary for mature life.”

IntelligenceIntellectGiftedAcademiaMiddlemarchWitsLydgate
Book:Middlemarch
Create image

“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)
Create image

“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 -
Create image

“We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, "Oh, nothing!" Pride helps; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our hurts— not to hurt others.”

MenLooksLittlesHelpingHurtAnswersTearsPrideMen And WomenLipsDisappointmentDinnerMortalsUrgesBad ThingsBreakfastPaleInquiryMiddlemarchDinner Time
Book:Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Create image

“And Dorothea..she had no dreams of being praised above other women. Feeling that there was always something better which she might have done if she had only been better and known better, her full nature spent itself in deeds which left no great name on the earth, but the effect of her being on those around her was incalculable. For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts and on all those Dorotheas who life faithfully their hidden lives and rest in unvisited tombs. Middlemarch”

IfsWorldDoneFeelingsDreamMightEarthNamesLeftKnownGrowingEffectsDeedsDependentSomething BetterTombsMiddlemarch
Author:George Eliot
Create image

“Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kept their honey-moon in Eden, but had their first little one among the thorns and thistles of the wilderness. It is still the beginning of the home epic - the gradual conquest or irremediable loss of that complete union which make the advancing years a climax, and age the harvest of sweet memories in common.”

YearsFirstsLittlesHas BeensStillsHomeAgeMemoriesLossCommonSweetMoonUnionsNarrativeWildernessHoneyAdamEpicHarvestConquestThornsEdenAdvancingAdam And EveClimaxMiddlemarchBourneThistlesSweet MemoriesGreat Beginnings
Book:Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Create image

“It is in these acts called trivialities that the seeds of joy are forever wasted, until men and women look round with haggard faces at the devastation their own waste has made, and say, the earth bears no harvest of sweetness - calling their denial knowledge.”

MenLooksMadeEarthFacesJoyForeverBearsCallingWasteMen And WomenRoundsSeedsDenialLittle ThingsHarvestSweetnessDevastationTrivialityHaggardMiddlemarch
Book:Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life
Create image

“What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?”

LonelinessSolitudeEthicsLonelySuspicionDistrustBeing AloneFeeling LonelyBeing LonelyLoneliness And SolitudeTrust IssuesLonely PeopleFeeling AloneI Am LonelyMiddlemarchLonely FeelingLonely And AloneAlone LonelyLonely LifeLonely HeartLonely Man
Book:George Eliot Collection: Middlemarch, Adam Bede, Silas Marner, The Lifted Veil, and The Mill on the Floss
Create image