Top 1025 Quotes & Sayings by George Eliot - Page 3

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

In spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations.

For what is love itself, for the one we love best? An enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love.

I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out.

Worldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral. They have the same effect of grating incongruity as the sound of a coarse voice breaking the solemn silence of night.

Science is properly more scrupulous than dogma. Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive.

A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.

To have in general but little feeling, seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any particular occasion.

An ass may bray a good while before he shakes the stars down.

In travelling I shape myself betimes to idleness And take fools' pleasure

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us.

It is as useless to fight against the interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog.

A friend is one to whom one may pour out the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.

We want people to feel with us more than to act for us.

Souls live on in perpetual echoes.

It is pleasant to have a kind word now and then when one is not near enough to have a kind glance or a hearty shake by the hand.

Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words.

The right to rebellion is the right to seek a higher rule, and not to wander in mere lawlessness.

Hold up your head! You were not made for failure, you were made for victory. Go forward with a joyful confidence.

I think I dislike what I don't like more than I like what I like.

No man can be wise on an empty stomach.

The darkest night that ever fell upon the earth never hid the light, never put out the stars. It only made the stars more keenly, kindly glancing, as if in protest against the darkness.

And, of course men know best about everything, except what women know better.

Veracity is a plant of paradise, and the seeds have never flourished beyond the walls.

One can say everything best over a meal.

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 the divine power against evil -- widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower.

Life is too precious to be spent in this weaving and unweaving of false impressions, and it is better to live quietly under some degree of misrepresentation than to attempt to remove it by the uncertain process of letter-writing.

Impatient people, according to Bacon, are like the bees, and kill themselves in stinging others.

... it is one thing to like defiance, and another thing to like its consequences.

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.

If you deliver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an air of conviction and well-founded knowledge. You make it your own in uttering it, and naturally get fond of it.

Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has the pluck to fight when he's sure of losing.

Religious ideas have the fate of melodies, which, once set afloat in the world, are taken up by all sorts of instruments, some of them woefully coarse, feeble, or out of tune, until people are in danger of crying out that the melody itself is detestable.

It is always good to know, if only in passing, charming human beings. It refreshes one like flowers and woods and clear brooks.

I have nothing to tell except travellers' stories, which are always tiresome, like the description of a play which was very exciting to those who saw it.

It is a common sentence that knowledge is power; but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of ignorance? Knowledge slowly builds up what ignorance in an hour pulls down.

Trouble's made us kin.

"Abroad," that large home of ruined reputations.

Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning.

It's never too late to be who you were meant to be.

A good horse makes short miles.

Genius ... is necessarily intolerant of fetters.

there are two ways of speaking an audience will always like: one is, to tell them what they don't understand; and the other is, to tell them what they're used to.

One has to spend many years in learning how to be happy.

It is never too late, no matter how old you get because anytime or any point in your life you can always have a chance to make a difference. You can always make a change for the better no matter what background you derived from. You can always do your best and be all that you can be because you will always be uniquely you. It is why it is always wise to listen to your eternal heart, your eternal instincts, and what it had always strove for and/or to do because really anybody can make a difference not only in their own lives but in the lives of others. It is never too late to shine; never.

It is never too late to become the person you always thought you could be.

After all, the true seeing is within.

Enveloped in a common mist, we seem to walk in clearness ourselves, and behold only the mist that enshrouds others.

Decide on what you think is right, and stick to it.

We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it.

What destroys us most effectively is not a malign fate but our own capacity for self-deception and for degrading our own best self.

Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending.

I like not only to be loved, but to be told that I am loved; the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave.

Don't judge a book by its cover

Appearances have very little to do with happiness.

We are contented with our day when we have been able to bear our grief in silence, and act as if we were not suffering.

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity.

It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much.

May every soul that touches mine - be it the slightest contact - get there from some good; some little grace; one kindly thought; one aspiration yet unfelt; one bit of courage for the darkening sky; one gleam of faith to brave the thickening ills of life; one glimpse of brighter skies beyond the gathering mists - to make this life worthwhile.

To have suffered much is like knowing many languages. Thou hast learned to understand all.