Animals are such agreeable friends — they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
“Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story,” ch. 7, Scenes of Clerical Life (1857)
(Source)
Quotations by:
Eliot, George
Our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
(Attributed)
In John Morley, "The Life of George Eliot," Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (1886)
Our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
(Attributed)
In John Morley, "The Life of George Eliot," Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (1886)
I’m not denyin’ the women are foolish; God Almighty made ’em to match the men.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Adam Bede (1859)
MR. CRAIG: I like a cleverish woman — a woman o’ sperrit — a managing woman.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Adam Bede, 53 (1859)
Consequences are unpitying.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Adam Bede, Book 1, ch. 16 “Links” [Mr. Irwine] (1859)
(Source)
You’re mighty fond o’ Craig; but for my part, I think he’s welly like a cock as think’s the sun’s rose o’ purpose to hear him crow.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Adam Bede, ch. 17 (1859)
(Source)
Mrs. Poyser, about Mr. Craig. Sometimes paraphrased, "He was like a cock, who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow."
It’s but little good you’ll do a-watering the last year’s crop.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Adam Bede, ch. 18 [Mrs. Poyser] (1859)
(Source)
Our deeds determine us … as much as we determine our deeds.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Adam Bede, ch. 29 (1859)
We hand folks over to God’s mercy, and show none ourselves.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Adam Bede, ch. 42 (1859)
One couldn’t carry on life comfortably without a little blindness to the fact that everything has been said better than we can put it ourselves.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Daniel Deronda, Book 2, ch. 16 (1876)
No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Daniel Deronda, Book 5, ch. 8 (1876)
(Source)
Blows are sarcasms turned stupid: wit is a form of force that leaves the limbs at rest.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Felix Holt, the Radical (1866)
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 (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Felix Holt, the Radical (1866)
(Source)
I hold it blasphemy to say that a man ought not to fight against authority: there is no great religion and no great freedom that has not done it, in the beginning.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Felix Holt, the Radical, ch. 46 (1866)
(Source)
History, we know, is apt to repeat herself, and to foist very old incidents upon us with only a slight change of costume.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Janet’s Repentance, ch. 10 (1859)
(Source)
We must not inquire too curiously into motives…. they are apt to become feeble in the utterance: the aroma is mixed with the grosser air. We must keep the germinating grain away from the light.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Middlemarch, ch. 2 (1871)
Our deeds still travel with us from afar.
And what we have been makes us what we are.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Middlemarch (1871-72)
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.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Middlemarch (1871)
(last sentence of the book)
There are answers which, in turning away wrath, only send it to the other end of the room.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Middlemarch, Book 3, ch. 24 (1871)
(Source)
An allusion to Proverbs 15:1 "A soft answer turneth away wrath."
To have a discussion coolly waived when you feel that justice is all on your side is even more exasperating in marriage than in philosophy.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Middlemarch, Book 3, ch. 24 (1871)
(Source)
People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbors.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Middlemarch, Book 8, ch. 72 (1871-72)
What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Middlemarch, Book 8, ch. 72 [Dorothea] (1871)
(Source)
Tioto was experiencing that inexorable law of human souls tha we prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by the reiterated choice of good or evil that gradually determines character.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Romola, 2.3 (1863)
Any coward can fight a battle when he’s sure of winning; but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he’s sure of losing. That’s my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Scenes of Clerical Life, “Janet’s Repentance,” ch. 6 (1857)
(Source)
A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Scenes of Clerical Life, “Janet’s Repentance,” ch. 8 (1857)
(Source)
The blessed work of helping the world forward, happily does not wait to be done by perfect men; and I should imagine that neither Luther nor John Bunyan, for example, would have satisfied the modern demand for an ideal hero, who believes nothing but what is true, feels nothing but what is exalted.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Scenes of Clerical Life, “Janet’s Repentence,” ch. 10 (1858)
Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Silas Marner, ch. 18 (1861)
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
The Impressions of Theophrastus Such, ch. 4 (1879)
(Source)
Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
The Mill on the Floss (1860)
(Source)
More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
The Mill on the Floss, Book 7, ch. 1 (1860)
(Source)
I am not resigned; I am not sure life is long enough to learn that lesson.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
The Mill on the Floss, ch. 67 (1860)
Full text.
What a wretched lot of old shriveled creatures we shall be by-and-by. Never mind, — the uglier we get in the eyes of others, the lovelier we shall be to each other; that has always been my firm faith about friendship, and now it is in a slight degree my experience.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Letter to Sara Hennell (1852-05-27)
(Source)
I never will believe that our youngest days are our happiest. What a miserable augury for the progress of the race and the destination of the individual, if the more matured and enlightened state is the less happy one! Childhood is only the beautiful and happy time in contemplation and retrospect: to the child it is full of deep sorrows, the meaning of which is unknown.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Letter to Sara Hennell (May 1844)
(Source)
Whatever may be the success of my stories, I shall be resolute in preserving my incognito, having observed that a nom de plume secures all the advantages without the disagreeables of reputation.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Letter to William Blackwood (4 Feb 1857)