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Quotes About Society

Society never made the preposterous demand that a man should think as much about his own qualifications for making a charming girl happy as he thinks of hers for making himself happy.
~ George Eliot
Her heart went out to him with a stronger movement than ever, at the thought that people would blame him. Maggie hated blame; she had been blamed her whole life, and nothing had come of it but evil tempers.
~ George Eliot
What right have such men to represent Christianity—as if it were an institution for getting up idiots genteelly?
~ George Eliot
There is no general doctrine which is not capable of eating out our morality if unchecked by the deep-seated habit of direct fellow-feeling with individual fellow-men.
~ George Eliot
Certainly these men who had so few spontaneous ideas might be very useful members of society under good feminine direction
~ George Eliot
We don't ask what a woman does; we ask whom she belongs to.
~ George Eliot
I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence.
~ George Eliot
And to me it is one of the most odious things in a girl's life, that there must always be some supposition of falling in love coming between her and any man who is kind her, and to whom she is grateful.
~ 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
Women were expected to have weak opinions; but the great safeguard of society and of domestic life was, that opinions were not acted on. Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.
~ George Eliot
Society never made the preposterous demand that a man should think as much about his own qualifications for making a charming girl happy as he thinks of hers for making himself happy. As if a man could choose not only his wife but his wife's husband! Or as if he were bound to provide charms for his posterity in his own person!
~ George Eliot
A bride and bridegroom, surrounded by all the appliances of wealth, hurried through the day by the whirl of society, filling their solitary moments with hastily-snatched caresses, are prepared for their future life together as the novice is prepared for the cloister—by experiencing its utmost contrast.
~ George Eliot
Society never made the preposterous demand that a man should think as much about his own qualifications for making a charming girl happy as he thinks of hers for making himself happy. As if a man could choose not only his wife but his wife's husband!
~ George Eliot
Dorothea was not only his wife: she was a personification of that shallow world which surrounds the appreciated or desponding author.
~ George Eliot
What could two men, so different from each other, see in this brown patch, as Mary called hereself? It was certainly not her plainness that attracted them (and let all plain young ladies be warned against the dangerous encouragement given them by Society to confinde in their want of beauty)
~ George Eliot
Young ladies don't understand political economy, you know," said Mr. Brooke
~ George Eliot
Society never made the preposterous demand that a man should think as much about his own qualifications for making a charming girl happy as he thinks of hers for making himself happy. As if a man could choose not only his wife but his wife's husband!
~ George Eliot
What could two men, so different from each other, see in this "brown patch," as Mary called herself? It was certainly not her plainness that attracted them (and let all plain young ladies be warned against the dangerous encouragement given them by Society to confide in their want of beauty).
~ George Eliot
and she rarely forgot that while her grammar and accent were above the town standard, she wore a plain cap, cooked the family dinner, and darned all the stockings.
~ George Eliot
But her feeling towards the vulgar rich was a sort of religious hatred: they had probably made all their money out of high prices for everything that was not paid in kind at the Rectory: such people were no part of God's plan in making the world; and their accent was an affliction to the ears. A town where such monsters abounded was hardly more than a sort of low comedy, which could not be taken account of in a well-bred scheme of the universe.
~ George Eliot
Women were expected to have weak opinions; but the great safeguard of society and of domestic life was, that opinions were not acted on.
~ George Eliot
Women were expected to have weak opinions; but the great safeguard of society and of domestic life was, that opinions were not acted upon. Sane people did what their neighbours did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.
~ George Eliot
There is often something poisonous in the air of public rooms
~ George Eliot
We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep apart when we have quarrelled, express ourselves in well-bred phrases, and in this way preserve a dignified alienation, showing much firmness on one side, and swallowing much grief on the other. We no longer approximate in our behavior to the mere impulsiveness of the lower animals, but conduct ourselves in every respect like members of a highly civilized society.
~ George Eliot