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32a3e88
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Destiny stands by sarcastic with our dramatis personae folded in her hand.
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self
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George Eliot |
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d9245e5
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She hates everything that is not what she longs for.
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passion
mania
obsession
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George Eliot |
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ca6c13a
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Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.
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George Eliot |
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d3ac49e
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He distrusted her affection; and what loneliness is more lonely than distrust.
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George Eliot |
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a6d10e7
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A man falling into dark waters seeks a momentary footing even on sliding stones.
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George Eliot |
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80dfb3f
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In books there were people who were always agreeable or tender, and delighted to do things that made one happy, and who did not show their kindness by finding fault. The world outside the books was not a happy one, Maggie felt: it seemed to be a world where people behaved the best to those they did not pretend to love and that did not belong to them. And if life had no love in it, what else was there for Maggie? Nothing but poverty and the ..
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George Eliot |
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8ff496a
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Perfect love has a breath of poetry which can exalt the relations of the least-instructed human beings.
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love
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George Eliot |
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9b5d953
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We all remember epochs in our experience when some dear expectation dies, or some new motive is born.
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motive
experience
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George Eliot |
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cfa6ad2
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I don't make myself disagreeable; it is you who find me so. Disagreeable is a word that describes your feelings and not my actions.
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George Eliot |
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cc593d9
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Nature repairs her ravages, but not all. The uptorn trees are not rooted again; the parted hills are left scarred; if there is a new growth, the trees are not the same as the old, and the hills underneath their green vesture bear the marks of the past rending. To the eyes that have dwelt on the past, there is no thorough repair.
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George Eliot |
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c37b39c
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It's a father's duty to give his sons a fine chance.
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father-and-son
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George Eliot |
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f74b264
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What a different result one gets by changing the metaphor!
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George Eliot |
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f2b23a7
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Her own misery filled her heart--there was no room in it for other people's sorrow.
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self-pity
perspective
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George Eliot |
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1c8de1a
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Upon my word, I think the truth is the hardest missile one can be pelted with.
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George Eliot |
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a0c12e8
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We have all got to exert ourselves a little to keep sane, and call things by the same names as other people call them by.
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self-image
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George Eliot |
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385dfb8
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There were intervals in which she could sit perfectly still, enjoying the outer stillness and the subdued light. The red fire with its gently audible movement seemed like a solemn existence calmly independent of the petty passions, the imbecile desires, the straining after worthless uncertainties, which were daily moving her contempt. Mary was fond of her own thoughts, and could amuse herself well sitting in the twilight with her hands in h..
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George Eliot |
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4f4e0ef
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Power of generalizing gives men so much the superiority in mistake over the dumb animals.
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simplicity
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George Eliot |
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8832d7a
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Self-consciousness of the manner is the expensive substitute for simplicity.
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materialism
vanity
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George Eliot |
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fc8f3d9
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All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.
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George Eliot |
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c070f34
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And Dorothea..she had no dreams of being praised above other women.
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George Eliot |
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4ca5b9c
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There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.
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George Eliot |
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217c3c7
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When God makes His presence felt through us, we are like the burning bush: Moses never took any heed what sort of bush it was--he only saw the brightness of the Lord.
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George Eliot |
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f4320d3
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A child, more than all other gifts That earth can offer to declining man, Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts." --WORDSWORTH."
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George Eliot |
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2807956
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The great safeguard of society and of domestic life was, that opinions were not acted on. Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.
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conviction
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George Eliot |
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eae755d
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and we must learn to accommodate ourselves to the discovery that some of those cunningly-fashioned instruments called human souls have only a very limited range of music, and will not vibrate in the least under a touch that fills others with tremulous rapture or quivering agony.
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George Eliot |
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52bd437
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If I got places, sir, it was because I made myself fit for 'em. If you want to slip into a round hole, you must first make a ball of yourself; that's where it is.
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George Eliot |
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9789955
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Society never made the preposterous demand that a man should think as much about his own qualifications for making a charming girl happy as he thinks of hers for making himself happy.
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society
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George Eliot |
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b8b1e92
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We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it, if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass, the same hips and haws on the autumn hedgerows, the same redbreasts that we used to call 'God's birds' because they did no harm to the precious crops. What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where ev..
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nature
love
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George Eliot |
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563b016
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People talk of their motives in a cut and dried way. Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster. I am not a monster but I have not felt exactly what other women feel, or say they feel, for fear of being thought unlike others.
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George Eliot |
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8f0d976
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It is better - it shall be better with me because I have known you.
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George Eliot |
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141b786
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Marriage is so unlike everything else. There is something even awful in the nearness it brings. Even if we loved someone else better than - than those we were married to, it would be no use. I mean, marriage drinks up all our power of giving or getting any blessedness in that sort of love. I know it may be very dear, but it murders our marriage, and then the marriage stays with us like a murder, and everything else is gone.
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George Eliot |
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bddfea6
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But indefinite visions of ambition are weak against the ease of doing what is habitual or beguilingly agreeable; and we all know the difficulty of carrying out a resolve when we secretly long that it may turn out to be unnecessary. In such states of mind the most incredulous person has a private leaning towards miracle: impossible to conceive how our wish could be fulfilled, still - very wonderful things have happened!
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George Eliot |
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fdefa29
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We are contented with our day when we have been able to bear our grief in silence, and act as if we were not suffering.
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George Eliot |
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739590a
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Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out of their neighbor's buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no murder.
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jealousy
neighborhood
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George Eliot |
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17595cd
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How can one ever do anything nobly Christian, living among people with such petty thoughts?
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self-centeredness
pride
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George Eliot |
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c15afe9
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for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
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George Eliot |
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b8920c4
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When a tender affection has been storing itself in us through many of our years, the idea that we could accept any exchange for it seems to be a cheapening of our lives. And we can set a watch over our affections and our constancy as we can over other treasures.
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feelings
value
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George Eliot |
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9b015a4
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I am not magnanimous enough to like people who speak to me without seeming to see me.
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George Eliot |
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aebb84c
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How is it that the poets have said so many fine things about our first love, so few about our later love? Are their first poems their best? or are not those the best which come from their fuller thought, their larger experience, their deeper-rooted affections? The boy's flute-like voice has its own spring charm; but the man should yield a richer, deeper music.
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George Eliot |
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bc5e250
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Eros has degenerated; he began by introducing order and harmony, and now he brings back chaos.
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order
eros
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George Eliot |
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3b0e54d
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After all, people may really have in them some vocation which is not quite plain to themselves, may they not? They may seem idle and weak because they are growing. We should be very patient with each other, I think.
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growth
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George Eliot |
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2f6bae9
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Ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.
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probability
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George Eliot |
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1f31e87
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I have always been thinking of the different ways in which Christianity is taught, and whenever I find one way that makes it a wider blessing than any other, I cling to that as the truest--I mean that which takes in the most good of all kinds, and brings in the most people as sharers in it. It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much.
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George Eliot |
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ab00394
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I would rather not be engaged. When people are engaged, they begin to think of being married soon, and I should like everything to go on for a long while just as it is.
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marriage
married
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George Eliot |