George Eliot Quotes

A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.
George Eliot

Acting is nothing more or less than playing. The idea is to humanize life.
George Eliot

Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
George Eliot

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.
George Eliot

All the learnin' my father paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and an alphabet at the other.
George Eliot

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.
George Eliot

And when a woman's will is as strong as the man's who wants to govern her, half her strength must be concealment.
George Eliot

Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love.
George Eliot

Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.
George Eliot

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.
George Eliot

Best friend, my well-spring in the wilderness!
George Eliot

Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.
George Eliot

Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.
George Eliot

Breed is stronger than pasture.
George Eliot

But human experience is usually paradoxical, that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk or even current philosophy.
George Eliot

But that intimacy of mutual embarrassment, in which each feels that the other is feeling something, having once existed, its effect is not to be done away with.
George Eliot

Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.
George Eliot

Consequences are unpitying.
George Eliot

Death is the king of this world: 'Tis his park where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain are music for his banquet.
George Eliot

Different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.
George Eliot

Excessive literary production is a social offense.
George Eliot

Friendships begin with liking or gratitude roots that can be pulled up.
George Eliot

Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker.
George Eliot

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.
George Eliot

Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas.
George Eliot

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

Here undoubtedly lies the chief poetic energy: -in the force of imagination that pierces or exalts the solid fact, instead of floating among cloud-pictures.
George Eliot

I desire no future that will break the ties with the past.
George Eliot

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

I like not only to be loved, but to be told I am loved.
George Eliot

I like trying to get pregnant. I'm not so sure about childbirth.
George Eliot

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

In all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of dullness.
George Eliot

In spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations.
George Eliot

In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause.
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?
George Eliot

It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal.
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.
George Eliot

It is generally a feminine eye that first detects the moral deficiencies hidden under the "dear deceit" of beauty.
George Eliot

It is never too late to be what you might have been.
George Eliot

It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees.
George Eliot

Iteration, like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of progress.
George Eliot

Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.
George Eliot

Kisses honeyed by oblivion.
George Eliot

Might, could, would - they are contemptible auxiliaries.
George Eliot

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