George Eliot Quotes - Page 31

• That sort of reputation which precedes performance [is] often the larger part of a man's fame.

  George Eliot

  Men, Reputation, Fame

  George Eliot (2009). “Middlemarch: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.153, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Whatever be thy fate today, Remember, this will pass away!

  George Eliot

  Fate, Passing Away, Today

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• The saints were cowards who stood by to see Christ crucified: they should have flung themselves Upon the Roman spears, and died in vain-- The grandest death, to die in vain--for love Greater than sways the forces of the world!

  George Eliot

  Jesus, Should Have, Coward

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.4137, Delphi Classics

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• Folks as have no mind to be o' use have allays the luck to be out o' the road when there's anything to be done.

  George Eliot

  Luck, Mind, Use

  George Eliot (2016). “Adam Bede”, p.143, George Eliot

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• The prevarication and white lies which a mind that keeps itself ambitiously pure is as uneasy under as a great artist under the false touches that no eye detects but his own, are worn as lightly as mere trimmings when once the actions have become a lie.

  George Eliot

  Lying, Eye, Artist

  George Eliot (1869). “Silas Marner and Scenes of Clerical Life”, p.73

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• There are few of us that are not rather ashamed of our sins and follies as we look out on the blessed morning sunlight, which comes to us like a bright-winged angel beckoning us to quit the old path of vanity that stretches its dreary length behind us.

  George Eliot

  Morning, Blessed, Angel

  George Eliot (2016). “Complete Works Of George Eliot”, p.133, ShandonPress

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• In the love of a brave and faithful man there is always a strain of maternal tenderness; he gives out again those beams of protecting fondness which were shed on him as he lay on his mother's knee.

  George Eliot

  Mother, Men, Giving

  George Eliot (1875). “Silas Marner ; And, Scenes of Clerical Life”, p.224

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• Though I am not endowed with an ear to seize those earthly harmonies, which to some devout souls have seemed, as it were, the broken echoes of the heavenly choir--I apprehend that there is a law in music, disobedience whereunto would bring us in our singing to the level of shrieking maniacs or howling beasts.

  George Eliot

  Music, Echoes, Law

  George Eliot (1866). “Felix Holt: The Radical”, p.64

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• Nature has her language, and she is not unveracious; but we don't know all the intricacies of her syntax just yet, and in a hasty reading we may happen to extract the very opposite of her real meaning.

  George Eliot

  Nature, Real, Reading

  George Eliot (2005). “Four Novels of George Eliot”, p.113, Wordsworth Editions

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• News is often dispersed as thoughtlessly and effectively as that pollen which the bees carry off (having no idea how powdery they are) when they are buzzing in search of their particular nectar.

  George Eliot

  Ideas, News, Bees

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.393, Penguin

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• Strong souls Live like fire-hearted suns to spend their strength In farthest striving action; breathe more free In mighty anguish than in trivial ease.

  George Eliot

  Strong, Fire, Soul

  GEORGE ELIOT (1868). “THE SPANISH GYPSY”, p.244

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• I think there are stores laid up in our human nature that our understandings can make no complete inventory of.

  George Eliot

  Thinking, Understanding, Experience

  George Eliot (2016). “Complete Works Of George Eliot”, p.1192, ShandonPress

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• Those old stories of visions and dreams guiding men have their truth; we are saved by making the future present to ourselves.

  George Eliot

  Dream, Men, Vision

  Robert Coles, George Eliot, George Orwell, Leo Tolstoy, Anthony Trollope (2007). “Political Leadership: Stories of Power and Politics from Literature and Life”, p.19, Modern Library

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• Love supreme defies all sophistry.

  George Eliot

  Love, Sophistry, Supreme

  GEORGE ELIOT (1868). “THE SPANISH GYPSY”, p.213

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• The worst of misery
  Is when a nature framed for noblest things
  Condemns itself in youth to petty joys,
  And, sore athirst for air, breathes scanty life
  Gasping from out the shallows.

  George Eliot

  Air, Joy, Misery

  George Eliot (1839). “Theophrastus Such, Jubal and other poems and The Spanish gypsy”, p.444

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• Mighty is the force of motherhood! It transforms all things by its vital heat; it turns timidity into fierce courage, and dreadless defiance into tremulous submission; it turns thoughtlessness into foresight, and yet stills all anxiety into calm content; it makes selfishness become self-denial, and gives even to hard vanity the glance of admiring love.

  George Eliot

  Motherhood, Vanity, Self

  George Eliot (1876). “Scenes of clerical life”, p.267

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• A proud heart and a lofty mountain are never fruitful.

  George Eliot

  Heart, Mountain, Proud

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• Awful Night! Ancestral mystery of mysteries.

  George Eliot

  Night, Awful, Mystery

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.4217, Delphi Classics

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• Dark the Night, with breath all flowers,
  And tender broken voice that fills
  With ravishment the listening hours,--
  Whisperings, wooings,
  Liquid ripples, and soft ring-dove cooings
  In low-toned rhythm that love's aching stills!
  Dark the night
  Yet is she bright,
  For in her dark she brings the mystic star,
  Trembling yet strong, as is the voice of love,
  From some unknown afar.

  George Eliot

  Strong, Stars, Flower

  George Eliot (19??). “The Complete Works of George Eliot in Eighteen Volumes: Poems”

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• Lord! Thou art with Thy people still; they see Thee in the night-watches, and their hearts burn within them as Thou talkest with them by the way. And Thou art near to those that have not known Thee; open their eyes that they may see Thee--see Thee weeping over them, and saying, "Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life"--see Thee hanging on the cross and saying, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"--see Thee as Thou wilt come again in Thy glory to judge them at the last. Amen.

  George Eliot

  Art, Prayer, Father

  George Eliot (2016). “Adam Bede”, p.26, George Eliot

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• Don't let us rejoice in punishment, even when the hand of God alone inflicts it. The best of us are but poor wretches, just saved from shipwreck. Can we feel anything but awe and pity when we see a fellow-passenger swallowed by the waves?

  George Eliot

  Punishment, Hands, Wave

  George Eliot (1869). “Silas Marner and Scenes of Clerical Life”, p.311

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• Don't seem to he on the lookout for crows, else you'll set other people watching.

  George Eliot

  People, Crow, Suspicion

  George Eliot (1866). “Felix Holt: The Radical”, p.16

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• Until every good man is brave, we must expect to find many good women timid--too timid even to believe in the correctness of their own best promptings, when these would place them in a minority.

  George Eliot

  Believe, Men, Brave

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.933, Delphi Classics

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• Science is properly more scrupulous than dogma. Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive.

  George Eliot

  Mistake, Giving, Alive

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.483, Penguin

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• I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out.

  George Eliot

  Husband, Women, Home

  The Mill on the Floss bk. 6, ch. 6 (1860)

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