George Gissing Quotes

40 Sourced Quotes

This writer, who is horribly perspicacious and vigorous, demonstrates the certainty of a great European war, and regards it with the peculiar satisfaction excited by such things in a certain order of mind. His phrases about "dire calamity" and so on mean nothing; the whole tenor of his writing proves that he represents, and consciously, one of the forces which go to bring war about; his part in the business is a fluent irresponsibility, which casts scorn on all who reluct at the "inevitable." Persistent prophecy is a familiar way of assuring the event.

George Gissing
It has long been observed that mathematics tend to narrow the mind, and that an exclusive devotion to Science leads to ignorance so complete that it precludes a consciousness of its own existence.

George Gissing
The thought, however, of his girls having to work for money was so utterly repulsive to him that he could never seriously dwell upon it.

George Gissing
It is familiarity with life that makes time speed quickly. When every day is a step in the unknown, as for children, the days are long with gathering of experience...

George Gissing
Life, I fancy, would very often be insupportable, but for the luxury of self compassion.

George Gissing
The truths of life are not discovered by us. At moments unforeseen, some gracious influence descends upon the soul, touching it to an emotion which, we know not how, the mind transmutes into thought.

George Gissing
Honest winter, snow clad and with the frosted beard, I can welcome not uncordially; but that long deferment of the calendar's promise, that weeping loom of March and April, that bitter blast outraging the honor of May - how often has it robbed me of heart and hope.

George Gissing
The mind which renounces, once and for ever, a futile hope, has its compensation in ever-growing calm.

George Gissing
I hate and fear 'science' because of my conviction that, for long to come if not for ever, it will be the remorseless enemy of mankind. I see it destroying all simplicity and gentleness of life, all the beauty of the world; I see it restoring barbarism under a mask of civilization; I see it darkening men's minds and hardening their hearts.

George Gissing
Perhaps it is while drinking tea that I most of all enjoy the sense of leisure.

George Gissing
I hate with a bitter hatred the names of lentils haricots - those pretentious cheats of the appetite, those tabulated humbugs, those certified aridites calling themselves human food!

George Gissing
No, no; women, old or young, should never have to think about money.

George Gissing
Somebody has been making a speech, reported at a couple of columns' length in the paper. As I glance down the waste of print, one word catches my eye again and again. It's all about "science - and therefore doesn't concern me. I wonder whether there are many men who have the same feeling with regard to "science" as I have?

George Gissing
Science brings forth its newest discoveries in earth and heaven; it speaks to the philosopher in his solitude, and to the crowd in the market-place.

George Gissing
Of course, if your work is strong, and you can afford to wait; the probability is that half a dozen people will at last begin to shout that you have been monstrously neglected, as you have.

George Gissing
One of the shining moments of my day is that when, having returned a little weary from an afternoon walk, I exchange boots for slippers, out-of-doors coat for easy, familiar, shabby jacket, and, in my deep, soft-elbowed chair, await the tea-tray.... [H]ow delicious is the soft yet penetrating odour which floats into my study, with the appearance of the teapot!... What a glow does it bring after a walk in chilly rain!

George Gissing
Though a man be well versed in a science such as palaeontology it does not follow that he will view it in its philosophical relations.

George Gissing
A pipe for the hour of work; a cigarette for the hour of conception; a cigar for the hour of vacuity.

George Gissing
And why should any man who writes, even if he writes things immortal, nurse anger at the world's neglect? Who asked him to publish? Who promised him a hearing? Who has broken faith with him? Your poem, your novel, who bargained with you for it?

George Gissing
He pointed to a heap of five or six hundred letters, and laughed consumedly. "Impossible to read them all, you know. It seemed to me that the fairest thing would to be to shake them together, stick my hand in, and take our one by chance. If it didn't seem very promising, I would try a second time."

George Gissing
Bits of jokes, bits of statistics, bits of foolery.

George Gissing
It is our duty never to speak ill of others, you know; least of all when we know that to do so will be the cause of much pain and trouble.

George Gissing
Money is time. With money I buy for cheerful use the hours which otherwise would not in any sense be mine; nay, which would make me their miserable bondsman.

George Gissing
To be at other people's orders brings out all the bad in me.

George Gissing
Keep apart, keep apart, and preserve one's soul alive—that is the teaching for the day. It is ill to have been born in these times, but one can make a world within the world.

George Gissing
That is one of the bitter curses of poverty; it leaves no right to be generous.

George Gissing
Life is a huge farce, and the advantage of possessing a sense of humour is that it enables one to defy fate with mocking laughter.

George Gissing
People have got that ancient prejudice so firmly rooted in their heads — that one mustn't write save at I the dictation of the Holy Spirit. I tell you, writing is a business.

George Gissing
When I think of all the sorrow and the barrenness that has been wrought in my life by want of a few more pounds per annum than I was able to earn, I stand aghast at money's significance.

George Gissing
Money is made at Christmas out of holly and mistletoe, but who save the vendors would greatly care if no green branch were procurable?

George Gissing