Quotes by George Eliot

About George Eliot:

Mary Ann Evans is the author of seven novels, including Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch (1871–72), and Daniel Deronda (1876), most of them set in provincial England and known for their realism and psychological insight.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

It's a father's duty to give his sons a fine chance.

George Eliot

Each position has its corresponding duties.

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

Self-consciousness of the manner is the expensive substitute for simplicity.

George Eliot

Men outlive their love, but they don’t outlive the consequences of their recklessness.

George Eliot

When a tender affection has been storing itself in us through many of our years, the idea that we could accept any exchange for it seems to be a cheapening of our lives. And we can set a watch over our affections and our constancy as we can over othe...

George Eliot

The presence of a noble nature, generous in its wishes, ardent in its charity, changes the lights for us: we begin to see things again in their larger, quieter masses, and to believe that we too can be seen and judged in the wholeness of our characte...

George Eliot

I had some ambition. I meant everything to be different with me. I thought I had more strength and mastery. But the most terrible obstacles are such as nobody can see except oneself.

George Eliot

Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out of their neighbor's buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no murder.

George Eliot

We all remember epochs in our experience when some dear expectation dies, or some new motive is born.

George Eliot

She was no longer struggling against the perception of facts, but adjusting herself to their clearest perception.

George Eliot

Fear was stronger than the calculation of probabilities.

George Eliot

The terror of being judged sharpens the memory: it sends an inevitable glare over that long-unvisited past which has been habitually recalled only in general phrases. Even without memory, the life is bound into one by a zone of dependence in growth a...

George Eliot

If one is not to get into a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends?

George Eliot

And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.

George Eliot

If we had lost our own chief good, other people’s good would remain, and that is worth trying for.

George Eliot

If a man has a capacity for great thoughts, he is likely to overtake them before he is decrepit.

George Eliot

It is just that I don’t know how I could live without the hope of her. It would be like learning to live with wooden legs.

George Eliot

what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.

George Eliot

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

George Eliot

The world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome, dubious eggs, called possibilities.

George Eliot

Author Bio

  • NameGeorge Eliot
  • DescriptionEnglish novelist, journalist and translator
  • AliasesMary Anne Evans; Mary Ann Evans; Marian Evans
  • BornNovember 22, 1819
  • DiedDecember 22, 1880
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionNovelist; Translator; Philosopher; Writer; Poet
  • WorksThe Mill On The Floss; Silas Marner; Middlemarch; Daniel Deronda