George Eliot quotes - page 19

But most of us are apt to settle within ourselves that the man who blocks our way is odious, and not to mind causing him a little of the disgust which his personality excites in ourselves. (George Eliot)
I would not creep along the coast but steer Out in mid-sea, by guidance of the stars. View quote
George Eliot
A human being in this aged nation of ours is a very wonderful hole, the slow creation of long interchanging influences; and charm is a result of two such wholes, the one loving and the one loved. View quote
George Eliot
The desire to conquer is itself a sort of subjection. View quote
George Eliot
Our impartiality is kept for abstract merit and demerit, which none of us ever saw. View quote
George Eliot
One way of getting an idea of our fellow-countrymen's miseries is to go and look at their pleasures. View quote
George Eliot
In the love of a brave and faithful man there is always a strain of maternal tenderness he gives out again those beams of protecting fondness which were shed on him as he lay on his mother's knee. View quote
George Eliot
Our vanities differ as our noses do: all conceit is not the same conceit, but varies in correspondence with the minutiae of mental make in which one of us differs from another. View quote
George Eliot
Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous. View quote
George Eliot
It's well known there's always two sides, if no more. View quote
George Eliot
Plainness has its peculiar temptations quite as much as beauty. (George Eliot)
It is, I fear, but a vain show of fulfilling the heathen precept, 'Know thyself,' and too often leads to a self-estimate which will subsist in the absence of that fruit by which alone the quality of the tree is made evident. View quote
George Eliot
A mother's yearning feels the presence of the cherished child even in the degraded man. View quote
George Eliot
Each day saw the birth Of various forms, which, flung upon the earth, Seemed harmless toys to cheat the exacting hour, But were as seeds instinct with hidden power. View quote
George Eliot
The song shall spread and swell as rivers do, And I will teach our youth with skill to woo This living lyre, to know its secret will; Its fine division of the good and ill. So shall men call me sire of harmony, And where great Song is, there my life shall be. View quote
George Eliot
No eye saw him, while with loving pride Each voice with each in praise of Jubal vied. View quote
George Eliot
Here and there is born a Saint Theresa, foundress of nothing, whose loving heart-beats and sobs after an unattained goodness tremble off and are dispersed among hindrances, instead of centring in some long-recognizable deed. View quote
George Eliot
Each day he wrought and better than he planned, Shape breeding shape beneath his restless hand. (The soul without still helps the soul within, And its deft magic ends what we begin.) View quote
George Eliot
May I reach That purest heaven, - be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty, Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense! View quote
George Eliot
Her flame quickly burned up that light fuel; and, fed from within, soared after some illimitable satisfaction, some object which would never justify weariness, which would reconcile self-despair with the rapturous consciousness of life beyond self. View quote
George Eliot
Who that cares much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, has not dwelt, at least briefly, on the life of Saint Theresa, has not smiled with some gentleness at the thought of the little girl walking forth one morning hand-in-hand with her still smaller brother, to go and seek martyrdom in the country of the Moors? (George Eliot)
I wish to use my last hours of ease and strength in telling the strange story of my experience. I have never fully unbosomed myself to any human being; I have never been encouraged to trust much in the sympathy of my fellow-men. View quote
George Eliot
No farther will I travel: once again My brethren I will see, and that fair plain Where I and song were born. View quote
George Eliot
Then, as the metal shapes more various grew, And, hurled upon each other, resonance drew, Each gave new tones, the revelations dim Of some external soul that spoke for him. View quote
George Eliot
Then your charitable speeches may find vent; then you may remember and pity the toil and the struggle and the failure; then you may give due honour to the work achieved; then you may find extenuation for errors, and may consent to bury them. View quote
George Eliot