George Eliot quotes

There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope.

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

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

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

Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles.

Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?

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

There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope.

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

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

There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.

Little children are still the symbol of the eternal marriage between love and duty.

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

The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

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

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

Rome - the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar.

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

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.

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope.

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.

When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.

Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.

Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the world.

We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven has accorded this to us in the uncritical canine attachment.

Rome - the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar.

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.

The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.

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.

There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

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

In every parting there is an image of death.

Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.

But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.

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

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

There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire; it is hardly a passion, but a blight bred in the cloudy, damp despondency of uneasy egoism.

When death comes it is never our tenderness that we repent from, but our severity.

The only failure one should fear, is not hugging to the purpose they see as best.

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

Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down.

Marriage must be a relation either of sympathy or of conquest.

Life began with waking up and loving my mother's face.

We must not sit still and look for miracles; up and doing, and the Lord will be with thee. Prayer and pains, through faith in Christ Jesus, will do anything.

Marriage must be a relation either of sympathy or of conquest.

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

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

Little children are still the symbol of the eternal marriage between love and duty.

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.

A woman's heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed recipe.

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.

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

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

Whether happiness may come or not, one should try and prepare one's self to do without it.