Top 500 George Eliot Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

— George Eliot

Featured in: Focus Quotes, Self-Esteem Quotes, Positive Life Quotes, Short Positive Quotes, Self-Realization Quotes

2. “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

— George Eliot

Featured in: Book Quotes, Judging Quotes

3. “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.”

— George Eliot

Featured in: Empathy Quotes, Care Quotes, Friendship Quotes, True Friendship Quotes

4. “History repeats itself.”

— George Eliot

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

— George Eliot

Featured in: Empathy Quotes, Service Quotes, Kindness Quotes, Helping Quotes, Quotes About Giving

6. “The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.”

— George Eliot

7. “Animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.”

— George Eliot

8. “Go forward with joyful confidence.”

— George Eliot

9. “What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined – to strengthen each other – to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.”

— George Eliot

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

— George Eliot

11. “Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.”

— George Eliot

12. “Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.”

— George Eliot

13. “It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.”

— George Eliot

14. “Adventure is not outside man; it is within.”

— George Eliot

15. “Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.”

— George Eliot

16. “No man can be wise on an empty stomach.”

— George Eliot

17. “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.”

— George Eliot

18. “I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.”

— George Eliot

19. “All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.”

— George Eliot

20. “The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.”

— George Eliot

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

— George Eliot

22. “What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?”

— George Eliot

23. “Falsehood is easy, truth so difficult.”

— George Eliot

24. “No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.”

— George Eliot

25. “Hear Everything and judge for yourself.”

— George Eliot

26. “Keep true, never be ashamed of doing right.”

— George Eliot

27. “A fool or idiot is one who expects things to happen that never can happen.”

— George Eliot

28. “The law and medicine should be very serious professions to undertake, should they not? People’s lives and fortunes depend on them.”

— George Eliot

29. “Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.”

— George Eliot

30. “Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music.”

— George Eliot

31. “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.”

— George Eliot

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

— George Eliot

33. “What novelty is worth the sweet monotony where everything is known, and loved because it is known?”

— George Eliot

34. “Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity.”

— George Eliot

35. “Those who trust us educate us.”

— George Eliot

36. “Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.”

— George Eliot

37. “Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts – not to hurt others.”

— George Eliot

38. “The beauty of a lovely woman is like music.”

— George Eliot

39. “Iteration, like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of progress.”

— George Eliot

40. “Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.”

— George Eliot

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

— George Eliot

42. “No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.”

— George Eliot

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

— George Eliot

44. “Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face.”

— George Eliot

45. “I like not only to be loved, but also to be told I am loved.”

— George Eliot

46. “But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.”

— George Eliot

47. “What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity.”

— George Eliot

48. “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 .”

— George Eliot

49. “A woman’s hopes are woven of sunbeams; a shadow annihilates them.”

— George Eliot

50. “Say “I love you” to those you love. The eternal silence is long enough to be silent in, and that awaits us all.”

— George Eliot