George Eliot Quotes

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.

By George Eliot

It is never too late to become what we might have been.

By George Eliot

It is easy to say how we love new friends, and what we think of them, but words can never trace out all the fibers that knit us to the old.

By George Eliot

It always remains true that if we had been greater, circumstance would have been less strong against us.

By George Eliot

Is it not rather what we expect in men, that they should have numerous strands of experience lying side by side and never compare them with each other?

By George Eliot

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

By George Eliot

In every parting there is an image of death.

By George Eliot

Ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.

By George Eliot

Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness.

By George Eliot

If you sit down at set of sun And count the acts that you have done, And counting find One self-denying deed, one word That eased the heart of him who heard One glance most kind That fell like sunshine where it went- Then you may count that day well spent.

By George Eliot

I've never any pity for conceited people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them.

By George Eliot

I'm proof against that word failure. I've seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

By George Eliot

I'm not denyin' the women are foolish. God Almighty made 'em to match the men.

By George Eliot

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.

By George Eliot

I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence.

By George Eliot

I don't believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.

By George Eliot

I desire no future that will break the ties of the past

By George Eliot

I do not believe that any writer has ever exposed this bovaryisme, the human will to see things as they are not, more clearly than Shakespeare.

By George Eliot

Hostesses who entertain much must make up their parties as ministers make up their cabinets, on grounds other than personal liking.

By George Eliot

Hobbies are apt to run away with us, you know; it doesn't do to be run away with. We must keep the reins.

By George Eliot

He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.

By George Eliot

He was like the cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.

By George Eliot

Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important.

By George Eliot

Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words.

By George Eliot

For what is love itself, for the one we love best? - an enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love

By George Eliot

For what is love itself, for the one we love best? An enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love.

By George Eliot

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.

By George Eliot

Falsehood is easy, truth so difficult.

By George Eliot

Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster.

By George Eliot

Every man who is not a monster, mathematician or a mad philosopher, is the slave of some woman or other.

By George Eliot