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58f65f4
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It is the favourite stratagem of our passions to sham a retreat, and to turn sharp round upon us at the moment we have made up our minds that the day is our own.
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flesh
pride
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George Eliot |
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404b790
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A man's mind must be continually expanding and shrinking between the whole human horizon and the horizon of an object-glass.
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George Eliot |
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cfd7c7d
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Scenes which make vital changes in our neighbors' lot are but the background of our own, yet, like a particular aspect of the fields and trees, they become associated for us with the epochs of our own history, and make a part of that unity which lies in the selection of our keenest consciousness.
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George Eliot |
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feda9a9
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Our deeds still travel with us from afar, And what we have been makes us what we are
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George Eliot |
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73225a1
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Doubtless some ancient Greek has observed that behind the big mask and the speaking-trumpet, there must always be our poor little eyes peeping as usual and our timorous lips more or less under anxious control.
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metaphor
theatre
self-knowledge
masks
perception
drama
speech
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George Eliot |
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da48098
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scepticism, as we know, can never be thoroughly applied, else life would come to a standstill
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George Eliot |
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2f03a9a
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Let thy chief terror be of thine own soul: There, 'mid the throng of hurrying desires That trample on the dead to seize their spoil, Lurks vengeance, footless, irresistible As exhalations laden with slow death, And o'er the fairest troop of captured joys Breathes pallid pestilence.
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George Eliot |
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cd24741
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We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, 'Oh, nothing!' Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts - not to hurt others.
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George Eliot |
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e0932ab
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As Celia bent over the paper, Dorothea put her cheek against her sister's arm caressingly. Celia understood the action. Dorothea saw that she had been in the wrong, and Celia pardoned her. Since they could remember, there had been a mixture of criticism and awe in the attitude of Celia's mind towards her elder sister. The younger had always worn a yoke, but is there any yoked creature without its private opinions?
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George Eliot |
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dc23d56
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One must be poor to know the luxury of giving!
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George Eliot |
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f2325e5
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But a good wife--a good unworldly woman--may really help a man, and keep him more independent.
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temptation
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George Eliot |
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e3eebbc
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And to me it is one of the most odious things in a girl's life, that there must always be some supposition of falling in love coming between her and any man who is kind her, and to whom she is grateful.
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George Eliot |
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35b99e1
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So much of our early gladness vanishes utterly from our memory: we can never recall the joy with which we laid our heads on our mother's bosom or rode on our father's back in childhood. Doubtless that joy is wrought up into our nature, as the sunlight of long-past mornings is wrought up in the soft mellowness of the apricot, but it is gone for ever from our imagination, and we can only BELIEVE in the joy of childhood.
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George Eliot |
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727724d
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He had no longer free energy enough for spontaneous research and speculative thinking, but by the bedside of patients the direct external calls on his judgment and sympathies brought the added impulse needed to draw him out of himself. It was not simply that beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectably and unhappy men to live calmly - it was a perpetual claim on the immediate fresh application of thought, and on..
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George Eliot |
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dc8cb73
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Mrs. Tulliver was what is called a good-tempered person,-never cried, when she was a baby, on any slighter ground than hunger and pins; and from the cradle upward had been healthy, fair, plump, and dull-witted; in short, the flower of her family for beauty and amiability. But milk and mildness are not the best things for keeping, and when they turn only a little sour, they may disagree with young stomachs seriously. I have often wondered wh..
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George Eliot |
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13b8c66
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She had no tears this morning. She had wept them all away last night, and now she felt that dry-eyed morning misery, which is worse than the first shock, because it has the future in it as well as the present. Every morning to come, as far as her imagination could stretch, she would have to get up and feel that the day would have no joy for her. For there is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first grea..
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George Eliot |
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4bfc7e5
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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. As if a man could choose not only his wife but his wife's husband! Or as if he were bound to provide charms for his posterity in his own person!
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George Eliot |
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df42bcb
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My dear Mrs Casaubon," said Farebrother, smiling gently at her ardour, "character is not cut in marble - it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do." "Then it may be rescued and healed," said Dorothea."
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positive-thinking
life
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George Eliot |
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657e20b
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People talk about evidence as if it could really be weighed in scales by a blind Justice.
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George Eliot |
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7e400b4
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Instead of trying to still his fears he encouraged them, with that superstitious impression which clings to us all that if we expect evil very strongly it is the less likely to come...
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George Eliot |
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2855d8d
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That was an evil terror---- an ugly inmate to have found a nestling-place in Godfrey's kindly disposition; but no disposition is a security from evil wishes to a man whose happiness hangs on duplicity.
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happiness
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George Eliot |
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6803893
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Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.
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George Eliot |
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e2705bd
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One gets a bad habit of being unhappy.
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George Eliot |
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084a786
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I don't see how a man is to be good for much unless he has some one woman to love him dearly.' 'I think the goodness should come before he expects that.
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George Eliot |
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223094d
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When we are treated well, we naturally begin to think that we are not altogether unmeritous, and that it is only just we should treat ourselves well, and not mar our own good fortune.
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George Eliot |
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468f523
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Timid people always reek their peevishness on the gentle.
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fear
wrath
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George Eliot |
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597f9c2
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What we call the 'just possible' is sometimes true and the thing we find it easier to believe is grossly false.
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George Eliot |
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a3913e2
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In bitter manuscript remarks on other men's notions about solar deities, he had become indifferent to the sunlight.
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religion
apathy
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George Eliot |
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c2ce2e1
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Souls have complexions too: what will suit one will not suit another
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George Eliot |
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2a08528
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If a man has a capacity for great thoughts, he is likely to overtake them before he is decrepit.
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intellect
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George Eliot |
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d314045
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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. As if a man could choose not only his wife but his wife's husband!
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humor
social-norms
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George Eliot |
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1c4fa4b
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In general, one may be sure that whenever a marriage of any mark takes place, male acquaintances are likely to pity the bride, female acquaintances the bridegroom: each, it is thought, might have done better; and especially where the bride is charming, young gentlemen on the scene are apt to conclude that she can have no real attachment to a fellow so uninteresting to themselves as her husband, but has married him on other grounds. Who, und..
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tears
tension
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George Eliot |
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fb1bacc
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Their ardor alternated between a vague ideal and the common yearning of womanhood; so that the one was disapproved as extravagance, and the other condemned as a lapse.
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victoriana
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George Eliot |
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f374e96
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He thought it probable that Miss Brooke liked him, and manners must be very marked indeed before they cease to be interpreted by preconceptions either confident or distrustful.
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George Eliot |
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eb725d0
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Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care But for another gives its ease And builds a heaven in hell's despair Love seeketh only self to please, To bind another to its delight, Joys in another's loss of ease, And builds a hell in heaven's despite." --W. Blake: Songs of Experience"
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George Eliot |
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febbd50
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That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of divine power against evil- widening the skirts of light and making the struggle woth darkness narrower.
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George Eliot |
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3d7f51c
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Expenditure-like ugliness and errors-becomes a totally new thing when we attach our own personality to it, and measure it by that wide difference which is manifest (in our own sensations) between ourselves and others.
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George Eliot |
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4694afc
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Then I shall tell you. It is because you are to me the chief woman in the world - the throned lady whose colours I carry between my heart and my armour.
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George Eliot |
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84fec88
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I know the way o' wives; they set one on to abuse their husbands, and then they turn round on one and praise 'em as if they wanted to sell 'em.
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George Eliot |
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8970939
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Of course people need not be always talking well. Only one tells the quality of their minds when they try to talk well.
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George Eliot |
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8f5a76b
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Even people whose lives have been made various by learning, sometimes find it hard to keep a fast hold on their habitual views of life, on their faith in the Invisible, nay, on the sense that their past joys and sorrows are a real experience, when they are suddenly transported to a new land, where the beings around them know nothing of their history, and share none of their ideas--where their mother earth shows another lap, and human life h..
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George Eliot |
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472d1dd
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He had no ideal world of dead heroes; he knew little of the life of men in the past; he must find the beings to whom he could cling with loving admiration among those who came within speech of him.
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history
reading
myopia
perspective
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George Eliot |
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683f283
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The existence of insignificant people has very important consequences in the world. It can be shown to affect the price of bread and the rate of wages, to call forth many evil tempers from the selfish and many heroisms from the sympathetic, and, in other ways, to play no small part in the tragedy of life.
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people
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George Eliot |
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6ae24b9
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The Squire's life was quite as idle as his sons', but it was a fiction kept up by himself and his contemporaries in Raveloe that youth was exclusively the period of folly, and that their aged wisdom was constantly in a state of endurance mitigated by sarcasm.
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George Eliot |