Quotes from George Eliot

The sons of Judah have to choose that God may again choose them. The divine principle of our race is action, choice, resolved memory.

Different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

A difference of tastes in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees.

Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words.

The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.

Blows are sarcasm's turned stupid.

The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.

Prophecy is the most gratuitous form of error.

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.

It's but little good you'll do a-watering the last year's crops.

A patronizing disposition always has its meaner side.

Consequences are unpitying. Our deeds carry their terrible consequences, quite apart from any fluctuations that went before—consequences that are hardly ever confined to ourselves. And it is best to fix our minds on that certainty, instead of considering what may be the elements of excuse for us.

There is no hopelessness so sad as that of early youth, when the soul is made up of wants, and has no long memories, no superadded life in the life of others.

We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven has accorded this to us in the uncritical canine attachment.

One way of getting an idea of our fellow-countrymen's miseries is to go and look at their pleasures.

The law's made to take care o' raskills.

Life began with waking up and loving my mother's face.

That quiet mutual gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like the first moment of rest or refuge from a great weariness or a great danger.

'Tis God gives skill,But not without men's hands: He could not makeAntonio Stradivari's violinsWithout Antonio.

Sharp! yes, her tongue is like a new-set razor. She's quite original in her talk too; one of those untaught wits that help to stock a country with proverbs. I told you that capital thing I heard her say about Craig—that he was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow. Now that's an Æsop's fable in a sentence.

But human experience is usually paradoxical, that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk or even current philosophy.

The best augury of a man's success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.

[H]e was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.