George Eliot - People Quotes

49 Sourced Quotes

View all George Eliot Quotes
He was of an impressible nature, and lived a great deal in other people's opinions and feelings concerning himself...

George Eliot
As to people saying a few idle words about us, we must not mind that, any more than the old church steeple minds the rooks cawing about it.

George Eliot
There is a chill air surrounding those who are down in the world, and people are glad to get away from them, as from a cold room.

George Eliot
What people do who go into politics I can't think; it drives me almost mad to see mismanagement over only a few hundred acres.

George Eliot
I believe that people are almost always better than their neighbors think they are.

George Eliot
You must mind and not lower the Church in people's eyes by seeming to be frightened about it for such a little thing.

George Eliot
Self-confidence is apt to address itself to an imaginary dullness in others; as people who are well off speak in a cajoling tone to the poor.

George Eliot
The law and medicine should be very serious professions to undertake, should they not? People's lives and fortunes depend on them.

George Eliot
I don't feel sure about doing good in any way now; everything seems like going on a mission to a people whose language I don't know.

George Eliot
Blameless people are always the most exasperating.

George Eliot
Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.

George Eliot
After all, people may really have in them some vocation which is not quite plain to themselves, may they not? They may seem idle and weak because they are growing. We should be very patient with each other, I think.

George Eliot
How impossible it is for strong healthy people to understand the way in which bodily malaise and suffering eats at the root of one's life! The philosophy that is true — the religion that is strength to the healthy — is constantly emptiness to one when the head is distracted and every sensation is oppressive.

George Eliot
I've never any pity for conceited people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them.

George Eliot
How can one ever do anything nobly Christian, living among people with such petty thoughts?

George Eliot
It is very difficult to be learned; it seems as if people were worn out on the way to great thoughts, and can never enjoy them because they are too tired.

George Eliot
Her heart went out to him with a stronger movement than ever, at the thought that people would blame him. Maggie hated blame; she had been blamed her whole life, and nothing had come of it but evil tempers.

George Eliot
Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course...

George Eliot
I've been turning it over in after-dinner speeches, but it looks awkward-it's not what people are used to-it wants a good deal of Latin to make it go down.

George Eliot
It is doubtful whether our soldiers would be maintained if there were not pacific people at home who like to fancy themselves soldiers. War, like other dramatic spectacles, might possibly cease for want of a "public."

George Eliot
There is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it. A new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity of reforming a conventual life, any more than a new Antigone will spend her heroic piety in daring all for the sake of a brother's burial: the medium in which their ardent deeds took shape is forever gone. But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know.

George Eliot
The worst of all hobbies are those that people think they can get money at. They shoot their money down like corn out of a sack then.

George Eliot
It cuts one sadly to see the grief of old people; they've no way o' working it off; and the new spring brings no new shoots out on the withered tree.

George Eliot
Ugly and deformed people have great need of unusual virtues, because they are likely to be extremely uncomfortable without them.

George Eliot
[Most people] are neither extraordinarily silly, nor extraordinarily wicked, nor extraordinarily wise; their eyes are neither deep and liquid with sentiment, nor sparkling with suppressed witticisms; they have probably had no hairbreadth escapes or thrilling adventures; their brains are certainly not pregnant with genius, and their passions have not manifested themselves at all after the fashion of a volcano. … Depend upon it, you would gain unspeakably if you would learn with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks out through dull grey eyes, and that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones.

George Eliot
People who live at a distance are naturally less faulty than those immediately under our own eyes...

George Eliot
I would rather not be engaged. When people are engaged, they begin to think of being married soon, and I should like everything to go on for a long while just as it is.

George Eliot
College mostly makes people like bladders-just good for nothing but t'hold the stuff as is poured into 'em.

George Eliot
I shall be so glad if you will tell me what to read. I have been looking into all the books in the library at Offendene, but there is nothing readable. The leaves all stick together and smell musty. I wish I could write books to amuse myself, as you can! How delightful it must be to write books after one's own taste instead of reading other people's! Home-made books must be so nice.

George Eliot
I shall never love anybody. I can't love people. I hate them.' 'The time will come, dear, the time will come.

George Eliot