George Eliot
George Eliot
Mary Ann Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She is the author of seven novels, including Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Felix Holt, the Radical, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda, most of them set in provincial England and known for their realism and psychological insight...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth22 November 1819
care should harm
... 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.
play saws stories
I have nothing to tell except travellers' stories, which are always tiresome, like the description of a play which was very exciting to those who saw it.
people enough born
Some people are born to make life pretty, and others to grumble that it is not pretty enough.
despair trying purpose
What moments of despair that life would ever be made precious to me by the consciousness that I lived to some good purpose! It was that sort of despair that sucked away the sap of half the hours which might have been filled by energetic youthful activity: and the same demon tries to get hold of me again whenever an old work is dismissed and a new one is being meditated.
writing people thanks
People who write finely must not expect to be left in repose; they will be molested with thanks, at least.
believe sight london
... the business of life shuts us up within the environs of London and within sight of human advancement, which I should be so very glad to believe in without seeing.
brain mind want
Yes, Isaac Taylor, who has just published 'The World of Mind,' is the Isaac Taylor, author of the 'Natural History of Enthusiasm.' I dare say by this time there is a want of fatty particles in his brain.
silly writing people
The worst service, I fancy, that anyone can do for truth, is to set silly people writing on its behalf.
clever inferiority lessons
If I could only fancy myself clever, it would be better, but to be a failure of Nature and to know it is not a comfortable lot. It is the last lesson one learns, to be contented with one's inferiority -- but it must be learned.
weight faults helping
... one's own faults are always a heavy chain to drag through life and one can't help groaning under the weight now and then.
new-year witty blessing
Dear Friends all, A thousand Christmas pleasures and blessings to you -- good resolutions and bright hopes for the New Year! Amen. People who can't be witty exert themselves to be pious or affectionate.
punishment rewards tongue
Loquacity with tongue or pen is its own reward -- or, punishment.
children men growth
... men and women are but children of a larger growth ...
destiny feelings firsts
In the first moments when we come away from the presence of death, every other relation to the living is merged, to our feeling, in the great relation of a common nature and a common destiny.