He could perhaps have given no precise form to the reasons that determined this conclusion, but 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

George Eliot Quotes

I suppose it was that in courtship everything is regarded as provisional and preliminary, and the smallest sample of virtue or accomplishment is taken to guarantee delightful stores which the broad leisure of marriage will reveal. But the doorsill of marriage once crossed, expectation is concentrated on the present.

— George Eliot

Did ever a ghost give a man a black eye? That’s what I should like to know. If ghos’es want me to believe in ‘em, let ‘em leave off skulking i’ the dark and i’ lone places–let ’em come where there’s company and candles.

— George Eliot

The conduct that issues from a moral conflict has often so close resemblance to vice that the distinction escapes all outward judgments founded on a mere comparison of actions. -Book 6, chapter 9.

— George Eliot

The best introduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one’s own homestead.

— George Eliot

We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, “Oh, nothing!

— George Eliot

He would never have contradicted her, and when a woman is not contradicted, she has no motive for obstinacy in her absurdities.

— George Eliot

The tenacity with which he strove to hide this inward drama made it the more vivid for him; as we hear with the more keenness what we wish others not to hear.

— George Eliot

A man’s mind–what there is of it–has always the advantage of being masculine,–as the smallest birch-tree is of a higher kind than the most soaring palm,–and even his ignorance is of a sounder quality.

— George Eliot

I have no ground for the nonsensical vanity of fancying everybody who comes near me is in love with me.

— George Eliot

Hetty’s mind was oppressed at that moment with a worse difficulty than poor Lisbeth’s ways; she could not care about them.

— George Eliot

It was said of him, that Lydgate could do anything he liked, but he had certainly not yet liked to do anything remarkable. He was a vigorous animal with a ready understanding, but no spark had yet kindled in him an intellectual passion; knowledge seemed to him a very superficial affair, easily mastered: judging from the conversation of his elders, he had apparently got already more than was necessary for mature life.

— George Eliot

In those days the world in general was more ignorant of good and evil by forty years than it is at present.

— George Eliot

Don’t ask me, Adam,” Arthur said; “I feel sometimes as if I should go mad with thinking of her looks and what she said to me, and then, that I couldn’t get a full pardon – that I couldn’t save her from that wretched fate of being transported – that I can do nothing for her all those years; and she may die under it, and never know comfort any more.

— George Eliot

It’s all I’ve got to think of now – to do my work well and make the world a bit better place for them as can enjoy it.

— George Eliot

On the contrary, having the amiable vanity which knits us to those who are fond of us, and disinclines us to those who are indifferent.

— George Eliot

Oh, dear, because I have always loved him. I should never like scolding any one else so well; and that is a point to be thought of in a husband.

— George Eliot

I wouldn’t make a downright lawyer o’ the lad, – I should be sorry for him to be a raskill, – but a sort o’ engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer and vallyer, like Riley, or one o’ them smartish businesses as are all profits and no outlay, only for a big watch-chain and a high stool.

— George Eliot

Explain my preference! I never had a preference for her, any more than I have a preference for breathing.

— George Eliot

Can’t you tell me?” said Celia, setting her arms cozily. “No, dear, you would have to feel it with me, else you would never know.

— George Eliot

If that were true, Celia, my giving up would be self-indulgence, not self-mortification. But there may be good reasons for choosing not to do what is very agreeable,′ said Dorothea.

— George Eliot
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