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George Eliot

63 quotes

George Eliot (1819–1880) was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, an English novelist, poet, and journalist who wrote some of the most psychologically nuanced fiction of the Victorian era. Her masterwork *Middlemarch* is widely regarded as one of the greatest novels in the English language.

“When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.”

— George Eliot

Death

All Quotes by George Eliot

“Falsehood is easy, truth so difficult.”

— George Eliot

Truth

“But human experience is usually paradoxical, that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk or even current philosophy.”

— George Eliot

Experience

“I like not only to be loved, but also to be told I am loved.”

— George Eliot

Love

“I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out.”

— George Eliot

Home

“There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.”

— George Eliot

Best

“I'm proof against that word failure. I've seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.”

— George Eliot

Best

“Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.”

— George Eliot

Travel

“The only failure one should fear, is not hugging to the purpose they see as best.”

— George Eliot

Best

“In spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations.”

— George Eliot

Experience

“There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.”

— George Eliot

Great

“The best augury of a man's success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.”

— George Eliot

Best

“Wear a smile and have friends wear a scowl and have wrinkles.”

— George Eliot

Smile

“A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.”

— George Eliot

Great

“Little children are still the symbol of the eternal marriage between love and duty.”

— George Eliot

Family

“But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.”

— George Eliot

Hope

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”

— George Eliot

Nature

“It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees.”

— George Eliot

Gardening

“The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from the perfect freedom with which we each follow and declare our own impressions.”

— George Eliot

Freedom

“You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know.”

— George Eliot

Best

“When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.”

— George Eliot

Great