Quotes from George Eliot

The first sense of mutual love excludes other feelings; it will have the soul all to itself.

But is it what we love, or how we love, That makes true good?

Teach love, for that is what you are.

A human being in this aged nation of ours is a very wonderful hole, the slow creation of long interchanging influences; and charm is a result of two such wholes, the one loving and the one loved.

The first condition of human goodness is something to love; the second, something to reverence.

We look at the one little woman's face we love, as we look at the face of our mother earth, and see all sorts of answers to our own yearnings.

Knightly love is blent with reverence As heavenly air is blent with heavenly blue.

We reap what we sow, but nature has love over and above that justice, and gives us shadow and blossom and fruit, that spring from no planting of ours.

I love words; they are the quoits, the bows, the staves that furnish the gymnasium of the mind.

... learning to love any one is like an increase of property, -- it increases care, and brings many new fears lest precious things should come to harm.

Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down.

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.

Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas.

It is never too late to be who you want to be.

There are some cases in which the sense of injury breeds not the will to inflict injuries and climb over them as a ladder, but a hatred of all injury.

A suppressed resolve will betray itself in the eyes.

The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined together to strengthen each other in all labour, to minister to each other in all sorrow, to share with each other in all gladness, to be one with each other in the silent unspoken memories?

Affection is the broadest basis of good in life.

There is no private life which has not been determined by a wider public life.

The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.

In high vengeance there is noble scorn.

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

Habit is the beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectfully and unhappy men to live calmly