Top 500 George Eliot Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “Where Jack isn’t safe, Tom’s in danger.”

— George Eliot

202. “Thought Has joys apart, even in blackest woe, And seizing some fine thread of verity Knows momentary godhead.”

— George Eliot

203. “All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy.”

— George Eliot

204. “Our life is determined for us – and it makes the mind very free when we give up wishing, and only think of bearing what is laid upon us, and doing what is given us to do.”

— George Eliot

205. “They said of old the Soul had human shape, But smaller, subtler than the fleshly self, So wandered forth for airing when it pleased.”

— George Eliot

206. “A man’s mind–what there is of it–has always the advantage of being masculine,–as the smallest birch-tree is of a higher kind than the most soaring palm,–and even his ignorance is of a sounder quality.”

— George Eliot

207. “Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.”

— George Eliot

208. “Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.”

— George Eliot

209. “One can begin so many things with a new person! – even begin to be a better man.”

— George Eliot

210. “History, we know, is apt to repeat itself, and to foist very old incidents upon us with only a slight change of costume.”

— George Eliot

211. “That farewell kiss which resembles greeting, that last glance of love which becomes the sharpest pang of sorrow.”

— George Eliot

212. “A man falling into dark waters seeks a momentary footing even on sliding stones.”

— George Eliot

213. “No man can begin to mould himself on a faith or an idea without rising to a higher order of experience.”

— George Eliot

214. “A man’s a man. But when you see a king, you see the work of many thousand men.”

— George Eliot

215. “God, immortality, duty – how inconceivable the first, how unbelievable the second, how peremptory and absolute the third.”

— George Eliot

216. “Might, could, would – they are contemptible auxiliaries.”

— George Eliot

217. “Our words have wings, but fly not where we would.”

— George Eliot

218. “Family likeness has often a deep sadness in it.”

— George Eliot

219. “What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.”

— George Eliot

220. “The memory has as many moods as the temper, and shifts its scenery like a diorama.”

— George Eliot

221. “As to his religious notions – why, as Voltaire said, incantations will destroy a flock of sheep if administered with a certain quantity of arsenic. I look for the man who will bring the arsenic, and don’t mind about his incantations.” “Very.”

— George Eliot

222. “The very truth hath a colour from the disposition of the utterer.”

— George Eliot

223. “We reap what we sow, but nature has love over and above that justice, and gives us shadow and blossom and fruit, that spring from no planting of ours.”

— George Eliot

224. “It is not true that love makes all things easy; it makes us choose what is difficult.”

— George Eliot

225. “Perfect love has a breath of poetry which can exalt the relations of the least-instructed human beings.”

— George Eliot

226. “With a single drop of ink for a mirror, the Egyptian sorcerer undertakes to reveal to any chance comer far-reaching visions of the past. This is what I undertake to do for you, reader.”

— George Eliot

227. “A man deep-wounded may feel too much pain To feel much anger.”

— George Eliot

228. “Breed is stronger than pasture.”

— George Eliot

229. “Hurt, he’ll never be hurt – he’s made to hurt other people.”

— George Eliot

230. “Oh, sir, the loftiest hopes on earth Draw lots with meaner hopes: heroic breasts, Breathing bad air, run risk of pestilence; Or, lacking lime-juice when they cross the Line, May languish with the scurvy.”

— George Eliot

231. “To an old memory like mine the present days are but as a little water poured on the deep.”

— George Eliot

232. “The devil tempts us not – ’tis we tempt him, Reckoning his skill with opportunity.”

— George Eliot

233. “Do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration? After our subtlest analysis of the mental process, we must still say that our highest thoughts and our best deeds are all given to us.”

— George Eliot

234. “No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.”

— George Eliot

235. “The strength of the donkey mind lies in adopting a course inversely as the arguments urged, which, well considered, requires as great a mental force as the direct sequence.”

— George Eliot

236. “No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.”

— George Eliot

237. “If Art does not enlarge men’s sympathies, it does nothing morally.”

— George Eliot

238. “We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinnertime.”

— George Eliot

239. “Best friend, my well-spring in the wilderness!”

— George Eliot

240. “I like breakfast-time better than any other moment in the day. No dust has settled on one’s mind then, and it presents a clear mirror to the rays of things.”

— George Eliot

241. “There are some cases in which the sense of injury breeds not the will to inflict injuries and climb over them as a ladder, but a hatred of all injury.”

— George Eliot

242. “What a wretched lot of old shrivelled creatures we shall be by-and-by. Never mind – the uglier we get in the eyes of others, the lovelier we shall be to each other; that has always been my firm faith about friendship.”

— George Eliot

243. “The first condition of human goodness is something to love; the second, something to reverence.”

— George Eliot

244. “Solomon’s Proverbs, I think, have omitted to say, that as the sore palate findeth grit, so an uneasy consciousness heareth innuendos.”

— George Eliot

245. “It is always fatal to have music or poetry interrupted.”

— George Eliot

246. “It’s no use filling your pocket with money if you have got a hole in the corner.”

— George Eliot

247. “In every parting there is an image of death.”

— George Eliot

248. “Net the large fish and you are sure to have the small fry.”

— George Eliot

249. “There is no killing the suspicion that deceit has once begotten.”

— George Eliot

250. “How unspeakably the lengthening of memories in common endears our old friends!”

— George Eliot