Quotessence
Home / Authors / George Eliot
George Eliot

George Eliot Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenIfsMayThinkingKnowsPeopleHumansLiteratureWorldLoveSoulSeemsMindLittlesMiddlemarchLifeShouldFeelingsWellsGiving

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)
Create image

“I don't remember ever being see-saw, when I'd made my mind up that a thing was wrong. It takes the taste out o' my mouth for things, when I know I should have a heavy conscience after 'em. I've seen pretty clear, ever since I could cast up a sum, as you can never do what's wrong without breeding sin and trouble more than you can ever see. It's like a bit o' bad workmanship--you never see th' end o' the mischief it'll do. And it's a poor look-out to come into the world to make your fellow creatures worse off instead o' better.”

KnowsWorldShouldMindLooksMadeEndsRememberBitsSinPoorClearSawsTroubleTasteCreaturesMouthsConscienceShould HaveFellowsCastsHeavyEmsMischiefBreedingWorkmanship
Book:Works
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

“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)
Create image

“How is it that the poets have said so many fine things about our first love, so few about our later love? Are their first poems their best? or are not those the best which come from their fuller thought, their larger experience, their deeper-rooted affections? The boy's flute-like voice has its own spring charm; but the man should yield a richer, deeper music.”

MenShouldFirstsSaidVoiceBoysPoetFineSpringAffectionDeeperCharmYieldRootedFirst LoveFlutesFine Things
Book:Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)
Create image

“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.”

WorldShouldFirstsBelieveChildrenSeemsBeliefHeroDemandWorshipDiscoveryPassionateContraryRevolutionaryShockHeroismThreatenedRebelliousHabitualDownfallFrecklesBeing A Hero
Author:George Eliot
Create image

“These fellow-mortals, every one, must be accepted as they are: you can neither straighten their noses, nor brighten their wit, nor rectify their dispositions; and it is these people-amongst whom your life is passed-that it is needful you should tolerate, pity, and love: it is these more or less ugly, stupid, inconsistent people whose movements of goodness you should be able to admire-for whom you should cherish all possible hopes, all possible patience.”

PeopleShouldAbleLife IsCompassionStupidMovementGoodnessAnd LoveFellowsUglyAcceptedWitPityAdmireMortalsNosesCherishTolerateDispositionInconsistentRectify
Book:Four Novels of George Eliot
Create image

“A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of a native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar, unmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge.”

ThinkingMenGivingShouldHumansWellsMayLittlesHomeEarthHeavenStarsSoundDifferencesLandAreasLaborAstronomyFamiliarHuman LifeNativeBelongingRootedAccentsIntroductionKinshipNative Land
Author:George Eliot
Create image

“But I think it is hardly an argument against a man's general strength of character, that he should be apt to be mastered by love. A fine constitution doesn't insure one against small-pox or any other of those inevitable diseases. A man may be very firm in other matters, and yet be under a sort of witchery from a woman.”

ThinkingMenLoveShouldMayMatterCharacterFineDiseaseArgumentConstitutionInevitableFirmStrength Of CharacterPoxWitchery
Book:George Eliot Collection: Middlemarch, Adam Bede, Silas Marner, The Lifted Veil, and The Mill on the Floss
Create image