Famous Quotes by George Eliot (167 Quotations)

Here undoubtedly lies the chief poetic energy: –in the force of imagination that pierces or exalts the solid fact, instead of floating among cloud-pictures.

George Eliot – [Poetry and Poets]

How could a man be satisfied with a decision between such alternatives and under such circumstances? No more than he can be satisfied with his hat, which he's chosen from among such shapes as the resources of the age offer him, wearing it at best with a resignation which is chiefly supported by comparison.

George Eliot – [Decisions]

Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

George Eliot – [Action]

Human beliefs, like all other natural growths, elude the barrier of systems.

George Eliot – [Belief]

I at least have so much to do in unraveling certain human lots, and seeing how they were woven and interwoven, that all the light I can command must be concentrated on this particular web, and not dispersed over that tempting range of relevancies called the universe.

George Eliot – [Fiction]

I desire no future that will break the ties with the past.

George Eliot – [Future]

I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence.

George Eliot – [Writers and Writing]

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same kind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of literature and speech and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

George Eliot – [Love]

I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out.

George Eliot – [Men and Women]

I tell you there isn't a thing under the sun that needs to be done at all, but what a man can do better than a woman, unless it's bearing children, and they do that in a poor make-shift way; it had better ha been left to the men.

George Eliot – [Men and Women]

I'm proof against that word failure. I've seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

George Eliot – [Perseverance]

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

George Eliot – [Conceit]

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the best of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.

George Eliot – [Sensitivity]

Ignorance… is a painless evil; so, I should think, is dirt, considering the merry faces that go along with it.

George Eliot – [Children]

In all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of dullness.

George Eliot – [Quarrels]

In spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations.

George Eliot – [Platitudes]

In the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little.

George Eliot – [Age and Aging]

In the schoolroom her quick mind had taken readily that strong starch of unexplained rules and disconnected facts which saves ignorance from any painful sense of limpness.

George Eliot – [School]

In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause.

George Eliot – [Fools and Foolishness]

Is it not rather what we expect in men, that they should have numerous strands of experience lying side by side and never compare them with each other?

George Eliot – [Experience]