Quotes About George Eliot

he was one of those men who can be prompt without being rash, because their motives run in fixed tracks, and they have no need to reconcile conflicting aims.

Silas Marner was the third novel written by George Eliot and it was first published in 1861 by William Blackwood and Sons, of Edinburgh and London. It has been a highly successful book, demonstrated by the many adaptations it has generated through the years. As early as 1876 saw the release of the play Danl'l Druce, Blacksmith, by W.S Gilbert, which was clearly influenced by Eliot's novel with a similar beginning and end

This was a puzzling world, as he often said, and if you drive your wagon in a hurry, you may light on an awkward corner. Mr. Riley, meanwhile, was not impatient.

From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity.

Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge; it requires no accountability, no understanding.

the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs.

The Mill on the Floss was first published in three volumes in 1860 by William Blackwood and Sons of Edinburgh and London, while the first American edition was published by Thomas Y. Crowell Co, of New York. The work is considered to be Eliot's most autobiographical novel and her long time partner George Lewes reported that the process of writing the conclusion to such a personal tale caused her great emotional distress.

Maggie actually forgot that she had any special cause of sadness this morning, as she stood on a chair to look at a remarkable series of pictures representing the Prodigal Son in the costume of Sir Charles Grandison, except that, as might have been expected from his defective moral character, he had not, like that accomplished hero, the taste and strength of mind to dispense with a wig.

The eager theorizing of ages is compressed, as in a seed, in the want of a single mind.

His friend Tulliver had asked him for an opinion; it is always chilling, in friendly intercourse, to say you have no opinion to give. And if you deliver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an air of conviction and well-founded knowledge. You make it your own in uttering it, and naturally get fond of it.

We must not inquire too curiously into motives,' he interposed, in his measured way. 'Miss Brooke knows that they are apt to become feeble in the utterance: the aroma is mixed with the grosser air.

I won't go so far as to say that novels sell in inverse proportion to their worth, for just occasionally, someone like Dickens or George Eliot comes along to prove the opposite.

At university, one of my areas of study was Victorian literature, so I decided to see if I could write a novel as carefully planned and constructed as those of George Eliot, but with the narrative energy of Dickens.

My professional and human obsession is the nature of language, and my best relationships are with other writers. In many ways, I know George Eliot better than I know my husband.

No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of indifference.

The novel at its nineteenth-century pinnacle was a Judaized novel: George Eliot and Dickens and Tolstoy were all touched by the Jewish covenant: they wrote of conduct and of the consequences of conduct: they were concerned with a society of will and commandment.

An ingenious web of probabilities is the surest screen a wise man can place between himself and the truth.

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

I do gravitate toward 19th century writers, and I never mind being compared with some of the most memorable writers from that era. I mean, George Eliot is my absolute heroine.

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

for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

Folks as have no mind to be o' use have allays the luck to be out o' the road when there's anything to be done.

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

George Eliot makes us share their lives, not in a spirit of condescension or of curiosity, but in a spirit of sympathy. She is no satirist....But she gathers in her large grasp a great bunch of the main elements of human nature and groups them loosely together with a tolerant understanding which, as one finds upon re-reading, has not only kept her figures fresh and free, but has given them an unexpected hold upon our laughter and tears.