Quotes from George Eliot

It was a question whether gratitude which refers to what is done for one's self ought not to give way to indignation at what is done against another

With dim lights and tangled circumstance they tried to shape their thought and deed in noble agreement; but after all, to common eyes their struggles seemed mere inconsistency and formlessness.

Oh, mother," said Maggie, in a vehemently cross tone, "I don't want to do my patchwork." "What! not your pretty patchwork, to make a counterpane for your aunt Glegg?" "It's foolish work," said Maggie, with a toss of her mane,–"tearing things to pieces to sew 'em together again.

Public spirit was not held in high esteem at St. Ogg's, and men who busied themselves with political questions were regarded with some suspicion, as dangerous characters; they were usually persons who had little or no business of their own to manage, or, if they had, were likely enough to become insolvent.

I desire no future that will break the ties with the past.

I am influenced at the present time by far higher considerations and by a nobler idea of duty than I ever was when I held the Evangelical belief.

I easily sink into mere absorption of what other minds have done, and should like a whole life for that alone.

Boots and shoes are the greatest trouble of my life. Everything else one can turn and turn about, and make old look like new; but there's no coaxing boots and shoes to look better than they are.

It had already occurred to him that books were stuff, and that life was stupid.

Boots and shoes are the greatest trouble of my life.

You must learn to deal with the odd and even in life, as well as in figures.

So our lives glide on: the river ends we don't know where, and the sea begins, and then there is no more jumping ashore.

Life was never anything but a perpetual see-saw between gravity and jest.

I've had my say out, and I shall be the' easier for't all my life. There's no pleasure i' living, if you're to be corked up forever, and only dribble your mind out by the sly, like a leaky barrel.

The higher life begins for us ... when we renounce our own will to bow before a Divine law.

It's no trifle at her time at her time of life to part with a doctor who knows her constitution.

I will to make life less bitter for a few within my reach.

What courage and patience are wanted for every life that aims to produce anything!

... one's own faults are always a heavy chain to drag through life and one can't help groaning under the weight now and then.

... the business of life shuts us up within the environs of London and within sight of human advancement, which I should be so very glad to believe in without seeing.

Scepticismcan never be thoroughly applied, else life would come to a standstill.

To the receptive soul the river of life pauseth not, nor is diminished.

Would not love see returning penitence afar off, and fall on its neck and kiss it?

Hobbies are apt to run away with us, you know; it doesn't do to be run away with. We must keep the reins.