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
men compassion feelings
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.
memories pain compassion
For pain must enter into its glorified life of memory before it can turn into compassion.
stupid compassion people
These fellow-mortals, every one, must be accepted as they are: you can neither straighten their noses, nor brighten their wit, nor rectify their dispositions; and it is these people-amongst whom your life is passed-that it is needful you should tolerate, pity, and love: it is these more or less ugly, stupid, inconsistent people whose movements of goodness you should be able to admire-for whom you should cherish all possible hopes, all possible patience.
compassion years fire
Doubtless a great anguish may do the work of years, and we may come out from that baptism of fire with a soul full of new awe and new pity.
wisdom simple compassion
More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.
compassion joy suffering
My own experience and development deepen every day my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.
beyond british-author large realm silence
I like not only to be loved, but to be told that I am loved; the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave.
duty finding happiness impressed
I'm more and more impressed with the duty of finding happiness
almighty denying god match men-and-women women
I'm not denying the women are foolish: God almighty made 'em to match the men
almighty british-author denying god match women
I'm not denying that women are foolish: God almighty made 'em to match the men.
again choir dead immortal invisible join minds oh
Oh may I join the choir invisible / Of those immortal dead who live again / In minds made better by their presence.
crop good last
It's but little good you'll do, a watering the last year's crop
hatched pity
It was a pity he couldna be hatched o'er again, an' hatched different.
affections affliction against best confess danger defense delight experience gifts ideas joy laughed life living ought passionate perhaps personal sake share study surely sweet teaching though women
We women are always in danger of living too exclusively in the affections; and though our affections are perhaps the best gifts we have, we ought also to have our share of the more independent life -- some joy in things for their own sake. It is piteous to see the helplessness of some sweet women when their affections are disappointed -- because all their teaching has been, that they can only delight in study of any kind for the sake of a personal love. They have never contemplated an independent delight in ideas as an experience which they could confess without being laughed at. Yet surely women need this defense against passionate affliction even more than men.