Top 80 George Henry Lewes Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Sincerity is moral truth.”

— George Henry Lewes

2. “Insincerity is always weakness; sincerity even in error is strength.”

— George Henry Lewes

3. “The air is crowded with birds – beautiful, tender, intelligent birds – to whom life is a song.”

— George Henry Lewes

4. “The only cure for grief is action.”

— George Henry Lewes

5. “Originality is independence, not rebellion; it is sincerity, not antagonism.”

— George Henry Lewes

6. “As all Art depends on Vision, so the different kinds of Art depend on the different ways in which minds look at things.”

— George Henry Lewes

7. “The magic of the pen lies in the concentration of your thoughts upon one object.”

— George Henry Lewes

8. “Love is blind; couch not his eyes.”

— George Henry Lewes

9. “We must never assume that which is incapable of proof.”

— George Henry Lewes

10. “No man ever made a great discovery without the exercise of the imagination.”

— George Henry Lewes

11. “Heart and Brain are the two lords of life. In the metaphors of ordinary speech and in the stricter language of science, we use these terms to indicate two central powers, from which all motives radiate, to which all influences converge.”

— George Henry Lewes

12. “Individual experiences being limited and individual spontaneity feeble, we are strengthened and enriched by assimilating the experience of others.”

— George Henry Lewes

13. “In all sincere speech there is power, not necessarily great power, but as much as the speaker is capable of.”

— George Henry Lewes

14. “Ideas are forces; our acceptance of one determines our reception of others.”

— George Henry Lewes

15. “Mathematicians do not write for the circulating library.”

— George Henry Lewes

16. “A cell is regarded as the true biological atom.”

— George Henry Lewes

17. “Remember that every drop of rain that falls bears into the bosom of the earth a quality of beautiful fertility.”

— George Henry Lewes

18. “The true function of philosophy is to educate us in the principles of reasoning and not to put an end to further reasoning by the introduction of fixed conclusions.”

— George Henry Lewes

19. “Character is built out of circumstances. From exactly the same materials, one man builds palaces, while another builds hovels.”

— George Henry Lewes

20. “Speak for yourself and from yourself, or be silent.”

— George Henry Lewes

21. “In the air we breathe, in the water we drink, in the earth we tread on, Life is every where. Nature lives: every pore is bursting with Life ; every death is only a new birth, every grave a cradle.”

— George Henry Lewes

22. “Whatever you believe to be true and false, that proclaim to be true and false; whatever you think admirable and beautiful, that should be your model, even if all your friends and all the critics storm at you as a crotchet-monger and an eccentric.”

— George Henry Lewes

23. “Personal experience is the basis of all real literature.”

— George Henry Lewes

24. “Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed.”

— George Henry Lewes

25. “The delusions of self-love cannot be prevented, but intellectual misconceptions as to the means of achieving success may be corrected.”

— George Henry Lewes

26. “A man may be buoyed up by the efflation of his wild desires to brave any imaginable peril; but he cannot calmly see one he loves braving the same peril; simply because he cannot feel within turn that which prompts another. He sees the danger, and feels not the power that is to overcome it.”

— George Henry Lewes

27. “Murder, like talent, seems occasionally to run in families.”

— George Henry Lewes

28. “Philosophy and Art both render the invisible visible by imagination.”

— George Henry Lewes

29. “There are many justifications of silence; there can be none of insincerity.”

— George Henry Lewes

30. “The real people of genius were resolute workers not idle dreamers.”

— George Henry Lewes

31. “To one man a stream is so much water-power, to another a rendezvous for lovers.”

— George Henry Lewes

32. “Science is the systematic classification of experience.”

— George Henry Lewes

33. “Language, after all, is only the use of symbols, and Art also can only affect us through symbols.”

— George Henry Lewes

34. “If the members of a class do not understand – if those directly addressed fail to listen, or listening, fail to recognize a power in the voice – surely the fault lies with the speaker, who, having attempted to secure their attention and enlighten their understandings, has failed in the attempt.”

— George Henry Lewes

35. “To love is for the Soul to choose a companion, and travel with it along the perilous defiles and winding ways of life; mutually sustaining, when it is rugged with obstructions, and mutually rejoicing, when rich broad plains and sunny slopes make journeying delight.”

— George Henry Lewes

36. “There are occasions when the simplest and fewest words surpass in effect all the wealth of rhetorical amplification.”

— George Henry Lewes

37. “All great authors are seers.”

— George Henry Lewes

38. “The object of Literature is to instruct, to animate, or to amuse.”

— George Henry Lewes

39. “Shakespeare is a good raft whereon to float securely down the stream of time; fasten yourself to that and your immortality is safe.”

— George Henry Lewes

40. “Those works alone can have enduring success which successfully appeal to what is permanent in human nature – which, while suiting the taste of the day, contain truths and beauty deeper than the opinions and tastes of the day.”

— George Henry Lewes

41. “I am suspicious without a motive, and jealous without love; although I feel I ought to love since I desire to be loved.”

— George Henry Lewes

42. “The prosperity of a book lies in the minds of readers. Public knowledge and public taste fluctuate; and there come times when works which were once capable of instructing and delighting thousands lose their power, and works, before neglected, emerge into renown.”

— George Henry Lewes

43. “The spontaneous tendency to invoke a Final Cause in explanation of every difficulty is characteristic of metaphysical philosophy. It arises from a general tendency towards the impersonation of abstractions which is visible throughout History.”

— George Henry Lewes

44. “If you feel yourself to be above the mass, speak so as to raise the mass to the height of your argument.”

— George Henry Lewes

45. “When a man fails to see the truth of certain generally accepted views, there is no law compelling him to provoke animosity by announcing his dissent.”

— George Henry Lewes

46. “In its happiest efforts, translation is but approximation, and its efforts are not often happy. A translation may be good as translation, but it cannot be an adequate reproduction of the original.”

— George Henry Lewes

47. “Endeavour to be faithful, and if there is any beauty in your thought, your style will be beautiful; if there is any real emotion to express, the expression will be moving.”

— George Henry Lewes

48. “Over the meeting of the lovers I draw a veil. The burst of rapture with which they clasped each other in a wild embrace – the many inquiries – the fond regrets and thrilling hopes – it is out of my power to convey. Let me, therefore, leave them to their happiness.”

— George Henry Lewes

49. “Literature delivers tidings of the world within and the world without.”

— George Henry Lewes

50. “Genius is rarely able to give any account of its own processes.”

— George Henry Lewes