Quotes from George Eliot

three cuttle-fish sable, and a commentator rampant.

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

They are a narrow ignorant set, and do more to make their neighbors uncomfortable than to make them better. Their system is a sort of worldly-spiritual cliqueism: they really look on the rest of mankind as a doomed carcass which is to nourish them for heaven.

Silas himself was feeling the withering desolation of that bereavement about which his neighbours were arguing at their ease.

I will not profess bravery [...] but I acknowledge a good deal of pleasure in fighting.

I can look forward to no better happiness than that which would be one with yours.

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.

there are many blanks left in the weeks of courtship which a loving faith fills with happy assurance.

Chiunque osservi con attenzione la convergenza furtiva dei destini umani, scorge una lenta preparazione di effetti che una vita esercita su un'altra, che ha l'effetto di una calcolata ironia sull'indifferenza o sullo sguardo gelido con cui guardiamo il nostro vicino non ancora conosciuto. Il Destino sta in attesa, sarcastico, tenendo i nostri dramatis personae stretti in pugno.

Él desconfiaba del cariño de Dorothea y ¿qué soledad hay mayor que la de la desconfianza?

Selbstsüchtige Menschen halten immer ihr eigenes Unbehagen für das Wichtigste auf der Welt.

I think there is more than enough literature of the criticizing sort...To read much of it seems to me seriously injurious: it accustoms men and women to formulate opinions instead of receiving deep impressions, and to receive deep impressions is the foundation of all true mental power.

People can easily take the sacred word duty as a name for what they desire any one else to do.

When we are young we think our troubles a mighty business – that the world is spread out expressly as a stage for the particular drama of our lives and that we have a right to rant and foam at the mouth if we are crossed. I have done enough of that in my time.

Se vedessimo e sentissimo in modo intenso tutta la normale vita umana, sarebbe come udire l'erba crescere e il pulsare del cuore dello scoiattolo, e moriremmo per il frastuono che è al di là del silenzio. Così come stanno le cose, i più svegli di noi si muovono ben imbottiti di stupidità.

I wonder how girls manage to fall in love. It is easy to make them do it in books. But men are too ridiculous. Gwendolen Harleth

Le nostre passioni non vivono l'una separata dall'altra, in camere serrate a chiave, ma, rivestite del loro modesto guardaroba di idee, portano i loro viveri a un tavolo comune e mangiano assieme, nutrendosi delle provviste comuni a seconda del loro appetito.

Ignorance is not so damnable as humbug; but when it prescribes pills it may happen to do more harm.

She would have been obliged to allow, if any one had said it to her, that what she submitted to could not take the shape of duty, but was submission to a yoke drawn on her by an action she was ashamed of, and worn with a strength of selfish motives that left no weight for duty to carry.

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.

People were so ridiculous with their illusions, carrying their fool's caps unawares, thinking their own lies opaque while everybody else's were transparent, making themselves exceptions to everything, as if when all the world looked yellow under a lamp they alone were rosy.

I never could look on it in the light of a recreation to have my ears teased with measured noises," said Mr Casaubon.

Good God! It is horrible! He is no better than a mummy!

There is a remnant still of last year's golden clusters of beehive-ricks rising at intervals beyond the hedgerows; and everywhere the hedgerows are studded with trees; (..) Just by the red-roofed town the tributary Ripple flows with a lively current into the Floss. How lovely the little river is, with its dark changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice