George Eliot Quotes - Page 15

• It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self.

  George Eliot

  Teaching, Self, Taught

  'Middlemarch' (1871-2) bk. 3, ch. 29

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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.

  George Eliot

  Death, Brother, Journey

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• Childhood is only the beautiful and happy time in contemplation and retrospect: to the child it is full of deep sorrows, the meaning of which is unknown.

  George Eliot

  Beautiful, Children, Happy Times

  George Eliot (2016). “George Eliot's Life, Complete: Top Novelist Focus”, p.50, 谷月社

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• He was at a starting point which makes many a man's career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose. . . .

  George Eliot

  Appreciation, Men, Careers

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.107, Penguin

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• But she took her husband's jokes and joviality as patiently as everything else, considering that "men would be so", and viewing the stronger sex in the light of animals whom it had pleased Heaven to make naturally troublesome, like bulls and turkey-cocks.

  George Eliot

  Sex, Husband, Animal

  George Eliot (1998). “Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe”, OUP Oxford

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• Falsehood is easy, truth so difficult.

  George Eliot

  Truth, Literature, Easy

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• In so complex a thing as human nature, we must consider it is hard to find rules without exception.

  George Eliot

  Human Nature, Exception, Humans

  GEORGE ELIOT (1860). “ADAM BEDE”, p.298

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• No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.

  George Eliot

  Love, Evil, Effort

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.3402, Delphi Classics

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• A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.

  George Eliot

  Girl, People, Feelings

  George Eliot (2016). “Scenes of Clerical Life: Top Novelist Focus”, p.225, 谷月社

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• Old men's eyes are like old men's memories; they are strongest for things a long way off.

  George Eliot

  Memories, Eye, Men

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.1359, Delphi Classics

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• Speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest.

  George Eliot

  Silence, Speech, Nests

  'Felix Holt' (1866) ch. 15

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• Where Jack isn't safe, Tom's in danger.

  George Eliot

  Safe, Danger, Toms

  George Eliot (1871). “Felix Holt, the Radical”, p.235

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• It's a father's duty to give his sons a fine chance.

  George Eliot

  Father, Son, Giving

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch”, p.139, Booklassic

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• A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterwards.

  George Eliot

  Marriage, Order, May

  'Middlemarch' (1871-2) bk. 1, ch. 9

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• There's times when the crockery seems alive, an' flies out o' your hand like a bird. It's like the glass, sometimes, 'ull crack as it stands. What is to be broke will be broke.

  George Eliot

  Glasses, Hands, Bird

  George Eliot (2005). “Four Novels of George Eliot”, p.162, Wordsworth Editions

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• Do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration? After our subtlest analysis of the mental process, we must still say that our highest thoughts and our best deeds are all given to us.

  George Eliot

  Inspiration, Names, Analysis

  GEORGE ELIOT (1860). “ADAM BEDE”, p.98

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• I am open to conviction on all points except dinner and debts. I hold that the one must be eaten and the other paid.

  George Eliot

  Principles, Debt, Dinner

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.6597, Delphi Classics

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• A bachelor's children are always young: they're immortal children - always lisping, waddling, helpless, and with a chance of turning out good.

  George Eliot

  Children, Thinking, Chance

  George Eliot (1866). “Felix Holt: The Radical”, p.91

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• I don't mind how many letters I receive from one who interests me as much as you do. The receptive part of correspondence I can carry on with much alacrity. It is writing answers that I groan over.

  George Eliot

  Writing, Mind, Answers

  George Eliot (1860). “Life and Letters”, p.635

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• Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.

  George Eliot

  People, Might, Neighbor

  1871-2 Middlemarch, bk.1, ch.1.

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• History, we know, is apt to repeat itself, and to foist very old incidents upon us with only a slight change of costume.

  George Eliot

  Costumes, Incidents, Repeats

  George Eliot (189?). “Scenes of clerical life”

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• Ah, I often think it's wi' th' old folks as it is wi' the babies; they're satisfied wi' looking, no matter what they're looking at. It's God A'mighty's way o' quietening 'em, I reckon, afore they go to sleep.

  George Eliot

  Baby, Sleep, Thinking

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• A medical man likes to make psychological observations, and sometimes in the pursuit of such studies is too easily tempted into momentous prophecy which life and death easily set at nought.

  George Eliot

  Men, Life And Death, Likes

  George Eliot (2004). “Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life”, p.249, Broadview Press

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• In every parting there is an image of death.

  George Eliot

  Literature, Parting

  'Scenes of Clerical Life' (1858) 'Amos Barton' ch. 10

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• The years seem to rush by now, and I think of death as a fast approaching end of a journey-double and treble reason for loving as well as working while it is day.

  George Eliot

  Journey, Thinking, Years

  George Eliot, John Walter Cross (2010). “George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals”, p.320, Cambridge University Press

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