1,496 Quotes by George Eliot

Life would be no better than candlelight tinsel and daylight rubbish if our spirits were not touched by what has been.

The men are mostly so slow, their thoughts overrun 'em, an' they can only catch 'em by the tail. I can count a stocking-top while a man's getting's tongue ready; an' when he outs wi' his speech at last, there's little broth to be made on't. It's your dead chicks take the longest hatchin'.

Poor fellow! I think he is in love with you.' I am not aware of it. And to me it is one of the most odious things in a girl's life, that there must always be some supposition of falling in love coming between her and any man who is kind to her... I have no ground for the nonsensical vanity of fancying everybody who comes near me is in love with me.

In so complex a thing as human nature, we must consider it is hard to find rules without exception.

For what is love itself, for the one we love best? - an enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love

There is hardly any contact more depressing to a young ardent creature than that of a mind in which years full of knowledge seem to have issued in a blank absence of interest or sympathy.

The best fire doesna flare up the soonest.

The difficult task of knowing another soul is not for young gentlemen whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes.

As to memory, it is known that this frail faculty naturally lets drop the facts which are less flattering to our self-love - when it does not retain them carefully as subjects not to be approached, marshy spots with a warning flag over them.