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
difficult less smile smiles wear
Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles. What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other?
lands mortals poor reasoning wrong
Wrong reasoning sometimes lands poor mortals in right conclusions
accident beginning forty man mine reason roof sink though worked
A man will tell you that he has worked in a mine for forty years unhurt by an accident as a reason why he should apprehend no danger, though the roof is beginning to sink . . .
late might
It is never too late to become what you might have been
late might
It is never to late to be what you might have been
circumstance fred power sharpening stress
. . . for the stress of circumstances, Fred felt, was sharpening his acuteness and endowing him with all the constructive power of suspicion.
cares joys love outside
For what is love itself, for the one we love best? - an enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love
along faces merry painless
Ignorance... is a painless evil; so, I should think, is dirt, considering the merry faces that go along with it.
flows foot invisible obedience path river
How will you find good? It is not a thing of choice; it is a river that flows from the foot of the invisible throne, and flows by the path of obedience
animal dangers decision frame held helped knocked muscular neither nor plenty
That big muscular frame of his held plenty of animal courage, but helped him to no decision when the dangers to be braved were such as could neither be knocked down nor throttled.
becomes farewell glance kiss last love pang resembles sharpest
That farewell kiss which resembles greeting, that last glance of love which becomes the sharpest pang of sorrow.
break charm mortals ordinary organ rush seemed sound street whistling wind
Lohengrin' to us ordinary mortals seemed something like the whistling of the wind through the keyholes of a cathedral, which has a dreamy charm for a little while, but by and by you long for the sound even of a street organ to rush in and break the
beliefs believe children contrary demand discovery downfall easily habitual heroes heroes-and-heroism less passionate perhaps seem shock threatened
Children demand that their heroes should be freckleless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life.
encouraged evil expect impression instead less likely strongly trying
Instead of trying to still his fears, he encouraged them, with that superstitious impression which clings to us all, that if we expect evil very strongly it is the less likely to come . . .