Quotes from George Eliot

But he would never lose sight of her: he would watch over her—if he gave up everything else in life he would watch over her, and she should know that she had one slave in the world.

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

Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it; it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker," But the truth is, gossip hurts.

Here was a man who now for the first time found himself looking into the eyes of death—who was passing through one of those rare moments of experience when we feel the truth of a commonplace, which is as different from what we call knowing it as the vision of waters upon the earth is different from the delirious vision of the water which cannot be had to cool the burning tongue.

It is a misfortune, in some senses: I feed too much on the inward sources; I live too much with the dead. My mind is something like the ghost of an ancient, wandering about the world and trying mentally to construct it as it used to be, in spite of ruin and confusing changes.

What should we all do without the calendar, when we want to put off a disagreeable duty? The admirable arrangements of the solar system, by which our time is measured, always supply us with a term before which it is hardly worth while to set about anything we are disinclined to.

The soul of man, when it gets fairly rotten, will bear you all sorts of poisonous toad-stools, and no eye can see whence came the seed thereof.

so much subtler is a human mind than the outside tissues which make a sort of blazonry or clock-face for it.

Una especie de gruñido monosilábico fue la respuesta, a mayor o menor distancia de la pregunta, según los casos, de acuerdo con la lentitud de los respectivos procesos mentales.

It is hard to say how much we could forgive ourselves if we were secure from judgment by another whose opinion is the breathing-medium of all our joy—who brings to us with close pressure and immediate sequence that judgment of the Invisible and Universal which self-flattery and the world's tolerance would easily melt and disperse. In this way our brother may be in the stead of God to us, and his opinion which has pierced even to the joints and marrow, may be our virtue in the making.

On the contrary, having the amiable vanity which knits us to those who are fond of us, and disinclines us to those who are indifferent

A man must have a very rare genius to make changes of that sort. I am afraid mine would not carry me even to the pitch of doing well what has been done already, at least not so well as to make it worth while. And

But you always were wrong: only I can't help loving you.

There are natures in which, if they love us, we are conscious of having a sort of baptism and consecration: they bind us over to rectitude and purity by their pure belief about us; and our sins become that worst kind of sacrilege which tears down the invisible altar of trust. 'If you are not good, non is good'--those little words may give a terrific meaning to responsibility, may hold a vitriolic intensity for remorse.

certain human tendencies which are commonly strong were almost absent from his mind;

Mr. Tulliver did not willingly write a letter, and found the relation between spoken and written language, briefly known as spelling, one of the most puzzling things in this puzzling world. Nevertheless, like all fervid writing, the task was done in less time than usual, and if the spelling differed from Mrs. Glegg's,- why, she belonged, like himself, to a generation with whom spelling was a matter of private judgment.

even the spring flowers and the grass had a dull shiver in them under the afternoon clouds that hid the sun fitfully;

Perhaps we don't always discriminate between sense and nonsense.

I went into science a great deal myself at one time; but I saw it would not do. It leads to everything; you can let nothing alone.

Hence the mere chance of seeing Will occasionally was like a lunette opened in the wall of her prison, giving her a glimpse of the sunny air; and this pleasure began to nullify her original alarm at what her husband might think about the introduction of Will as her uncle's guest. On

Oh, you dear good father! cried Mary, putting her hands round her father´s neck, while he bent his head placidly, willing to be caressed. I wonder if any other girl thinks her father the best man in the world. Nonsense, child; you´ll think your husband better. Impossible, said Mary, relapsing into her usual tone, husbands are an inferior class of men, who require keeping in order.

as Voltaire said, incantations will destroy a flock of sheep if administered with a certain quantity of arsenic.

Uno de los secretos en ese cambio de disposición mental que ha venido apropiadamente en llamarse conversión es que para muchos entre nosotros ni el cielo ni la tierra contienen revelación alguna hasta que cierta personalidad toca la suya con su influencia particular y los torna receptivos.

In this way, metaphorically speaking, a strong lens applied to Mrs. Cadwallader's match-making will show a play of minute causes producing what may be called thought and speech vortices to bring her the sort of food she needed.