1,496 Quotes by George Eliot

People who can't be witty exert themselves to be devout and affectionate.

Life's a vast sea That does its mighty errand without fail, Painting in unchanged strength though waves are changing.

Habit is the beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectfully and unhappy men to live calmly

Nature has the deep cunning which hides itself under the appearance of openness, so that simple people think they can see through her quite well, and all the while she is secretly preparing a refutation of their confident prophecies.

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

The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.

But she took her husband's jokes and joviality as patiently as everything else, considering that "men would be so", and viewing the stronger sex in the light of animals whom it had pleased Heaven to make naturally troublesome, like bulls and turkey-cocks.

Satan was a blunderer ... who made a stupendous failure. If he had succeeded, we should all have been worshipping him, and his portrait would have been more flattering.

Hopes have precarious life. They are oft blighted, withered, snapped sheer off In vigorous growth and turned to rottenness.