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
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.
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 . . .
came casket consciousness dependence dull expectation faint heart help inevitably left locked prop sight slight stirring though treasure utterly
Formerly, his heart had been as a locked casket with its treasure inside; but now the casket was empty, and the lock was broken. Left groping in darkness, with his prop utterly gone, Silas had inevitably a sense, though a dull and half-despairing one, that if any help came to him it must come from without; and there was a slight stirring of expectation at the sight of his fellow-men, a faint consciousness of dependence on their goodwill.
kindness home thoughtful
He was one of those men, and they are not the commonest, of whom we can know the best only by following them away from the marketplace, the platform, and the pulpit, entering with them into their own homes, hearing the voice with which they speak to the young and aged about their own hearthstone, and witnessing their thoughtful care for the everyday wants of everyday companions, who take all their kindness as a matter of course, and not as a subject for panegyric.
our-thoughts
Our thoughts are often worse than we are.
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.
bred moments movement repeating repetition trivial until waiting
Do we not wile away moments of inanity or fatigued waiting by repeating some trivial movement or sound, until the repetition has bred a want, which is incipient habit?
errors feels few fortune indulge liberty means mistakes naturally people persons quite small taking ugly whereas
Errors look so very ugly in persons of small means --one feels they are taking quite a liberty in going astray; whereas people of fortune may naturally indulge in a few delinquencies.