1,496 Quotes by George Eliot

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

If a man has a capacity for great thoughts, he is likely to overtake them before he is decrepit.

I fear that in this thing many rich people deceive themselves. They go on accumulating the means but never using them; making bricks, but never building.

It is curious what patches of hardness and tenderness lie side by side in men’s dispositions. I suppose he has some test by which he finds out whom Heaven cares for.

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving.

If you had a table spread for a feast, and was making merry with your friends, you would think it was kind to let me come and sit down and rejoice with you, because you’d think I should like to share those good things; but I should like better to share in your trouble and your labour.

Probabilities—the surest screen a wise man can place between himself and the truth.

John considered a young master as the natural enemy of an old servant, and young people in general as a poor contrivance for carrying on the world.

scepticism, as we know, can never be thoroughly applied, else life would come to a standstill