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George Eliot

George Eliot Quotes

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Famous George Eliot Quotes

“Life is very difficult. It seems right to me sometimes that we should follow our strongest feelings; but then such feelings continually come across the ties that all our former life has made for us,--the ties that have made others dependent on us,--and would cut them in two.”

ShouldMadeTwoSometimesFeelingsSeemsLife IsDifficultCuttingTemptationFormerTiesDependentStrongestFormer Life
Book:Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)
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“When our life is a continuous trial, the moments of respite seem only to substitute the heaviness of dread for the heaviness of actual suffering; the curtain of cloud seems parted an instant only that we may measure all its horror as it hangs low, black, and imminent, in contrast with the transient brightness; the waterdrops that visit the parched lips in the desert bear with them only the keen imagination of thirst.”

LifeMayMomentsSeemsLife IsSufferingBlackImaginationOur LivesBearsHorrorLowsLipsCloudsTrialsDesertInstantSubstitutesContrastDreadThirstCurtainsBrightnessTransientHeavinessRespite
Book:Silas Marner and Scenes of Clerical Life
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“Looking at your life as a debt may seem the dreariest view of things at a distance; but it cannot really be so. What makes life dreary is the want of motive; but once beginning to act with the penitential, loving purpose you have in your mind, there will be unexpected satisfactions--there will be newly-opening needs--continually coming to carry you on from day to day. You will find your life growing like a plant.”

WantLifeNeedsMindMaySeemsPurposeViewsGrowingDistancePlantSatisfactionDebtOpeningMotiveUnexpectedDay To DayDreary
Book:The Works of George Eliot in Twelve Volumes: Scenes of clerical life - Life of George Eliot
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“It is the moment when our resolution seems about to become irrevocable--when the fatal iron gates are about to close upon us--that tests our strength. Then, after hours of clear reasoning and firm conviction, we snatch at any sophistry that will nullify our long struggles, and bring us the defeat that we love better than victory.”

LongMomentsSeemsHoursLove IsStruggleClearVictoryTestsDefeatConvictionFirmReasoningIronGatesResolutionIrrevocableSophistryAfter Hours
Book:Four Novels of George Eliot
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“All writing seems to me worse in the state of proof than in any other form. In manuscript one's own wisdom is rather remarkable to one, but in proof it has the effect of one's private furniture repeated in the shop windows. And then there is the sense that the worst errors will go to press unnoticed!”

WritingStatesSeemsFormWorstEffectsWindowPressesErrorsProofShopsRemarkableFurnitureManuscriptsUnnoticedShop Windows
Book:The George Eliot Letters: 1874-1877
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“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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“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.”

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Book:George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals
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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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“If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new. We are told that the oldest inhabitants in Peru do not cease to be agitated by the earthquakes, but they probably see beyond each shock, and reflect that there are plenty more to come.”

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Book:Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)
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“Children demand that their heroes should be freckle less, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life.”

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Author:George Eliot
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“There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles, from the desperate to the sheepish; but there is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle and to engage in conscious mischief — a beauty with which you can never be angry, but that you feel ready to crush for inability to comprehend the state of mind into which it throws you.”

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Author:George Eliot
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“It is a sad weakness in us, after all, that the thought of a person's death consecrates him or her anew to us. It is as if life were not sacred too, as if it were comparatively a small thing to fail in love and reverence to the brother or sister who has to climb the whole toilsome mountain with us. It seems as if all our tears and tenderness were due to the one who is spared that hard journey.”

IfsPersonsHardWholeSeemsDeathFailingJourneyTearsBrotherMountainWeaknessSacredDuesClimbsReverenceTendernessSmall ThingsHard Journey
Author:George Eliot
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