1,496 Quotes by George Eliot

Are there many situations more sublimely tragic than the struggle of the soul with the demand to renounce a work which has been all the significance of its life--a significance which is to vanish as the waters which come and go where no man has need of them?

Anger seek it prey,-- Something to tear with sharp-edged tooth and claw, Like not to go off hungry, leaving Love To feast on milk and honeycomb at will.

You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know.

Oh may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence.

It is the way with half the truth amidst which we live, that it only haunts us and makes dull pulsations that are never born into sound.

There's nothing but what's bearable as long as a man can work.... The square o' four is sixteen, and you must lengthen your lever in proportion to your weight, is as true when a man's miserable as when he's happy; and the best o' working is, it gives you a grip hold o' things outside your own lot.

The mother's love is at first an absorbing delight, blunting all other sensibilities; it is an expansion of the animal existence.

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.

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