George Eliot - Adam Bede (1859)

93 Sourced Quotes

View all George Eliot Quotes
There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and to have recovered hope.

George Eliot
So much of our early gladness vanishes utterly from our memory: we can never recall the joy with which we laid our heads on our mother's bosom or rode on our father's back in childhood; doubtless that joy is wrought up into our nature, as the sunlight of long-past mornings is wrought up in the soft mellowness of the apricot; but it is gone forever from our imagination, and we can only believe in the joy of childhood.

George Eliot
Ingenious philosophers tell you, perhaps, that the great work of the steam-engine is to create leisure for mankind. Do not believe them; it only creates a vacuum for eager thought to rush in.

George Eliot
A peasant can no more help believing in a traditional superstition than a horse can help trembling when be sees a camel.

George Eliot
I might mention all the divine charms of a bright spring day, but if you had never in your life utterly forgotten yourself in straining your eyes after the mounting lark, or in wandering through the still lanes when the fresh-opened blossoms fill them with a sacred silent beauty like that of fretted aisles, where would be the use of my descriptive catalogue?

George Eliot
The words of genius have a wider meaning than the thought that prompted them.

George Eliot
It seems to me as a woman's face doesna want flowers; it's almost like a flower itself.... It's like when a man's singing a good tune, you don't want t' hear bells tinkling and interfering wi' the sound.

George Eliot
Family likeness has often a deep sadness in it. Nature, that great tragic dramatist, knits us together by bone and muscle, and divides us by the subtler web of our brains; blends yearning and repulsion; and ties us by our heart-strings to the beings that jar us at every movement.

George Eliot
Consequences are unpitying. Our deeds carry their terrible consequences, quite apart from any fluctuations that went before — consequences that are hardly ever confined to ourselves.

George Eliot
"I like breakfast-time better than any other moment in the day," said Mr. Irwine. "No dust has settled on one's mind then, and it presents a clear mirror to the rays of things".

George Eliot
It is well known to all experienced minds that our firmest convictions are often dependent on subtle impressions for which words are quite too coarse a medium.

George Eliot
Imagination is a licensed trespasser: it has no fear of dogs, but may climb over walls and peep in at windows with impunity.

George Eliot
You must learn to deal with odd and even in life, as well as in figures.

George Eliot
But, bless us, things may be lovable that are not altogether handsome, I hope?

George Eliot
When God makes His presence felt through us, we are like the burning bush: Moses never took any heed what sort of bush it was—he only saw the brightness of the Lord.

George Eliot
We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none ourselves.

George Eliot
When death, the great Reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.

George Eliot
Pity that consequences are determined not by excuses but by actions!

George Eliot
There's many a good bit o' work done with a sad heart.

George Eliot
The beginning of hardship is like the first taste of bitter food—it seems for a moment unbearable; yet, if there is nothing else to satisfy our hunger, we take another bite and find it possible to go on.

George Eliot
The first sense of mutual love excludes other feelings; it will have the soul all to itself.

George Eliot
Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings — much harder than to say something fine about them which is not the exact truth.

George Eliot
It was a pity he couldna be hatched o'er again, an' hatched different.

George Eliot
That's what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure o' one fool as 'ull tell him he's wise.

George Eliot
There's folks 'ud stand on their heads and then say the fault was i' their boots.

George Eliot
These fellow mortals, every one, must be accepted as they are.

George Eliot
There's no pleasure i' living if you're to be corked up for ever, and only dribble your mind out by the sly, like a leaky barrel.

George Eliot
Love has a way of cheating itself consciously, like a child who plays at solitary hide-and-seek; it is pleased with assurances that it all the while disbelieves.

George Eliot
There's no rule so wise but what it's a pity for somebody or other.

George Eliot
There is one order of beauty which seems made to turn heads. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle.

George Eliot