110+ George Eliot Quotes On Friendship, Death And Marriage

George Eliot was a British author who wrote under a male pen name in the 19th century. She is best known for her novels such as Middlemarch, Silas Marner, and The Mill on the Floss. George Eliot was a major figure of the Victorian era and is considered one of the greatest novelists of all time. Following is our collection on famous quotes by George Eliot on love, friendship, death.

Top 10 George Eliot Quotes

1. It is never too late to be what you might have been.
2. Keep true, never be ashamed of doing right; decide on what you think is right and stick to it.
3. Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.
4. No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.
5. Don't judge a book by its cover
6. A man's a man. But when you see a king, you see the work of many thousand men.
7. The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.
8. The rich ate and drank freely, accepting gout and apoplexy as things that ran mysteriously in respectable families.
9. Plainness has its peculiar temptations and vices quite as much as beauty.
10. Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.

George Eliot Image Quotes

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life. — George Eliot

Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another. — George Eliot

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive. — George Eliot

George Eliot Short Quotes

• Don't you meddle with me, and I won't meddle with you.
• An ass may bray a good while before he shakes the stars down.
• Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it.
• A patronizing disposition always has its meaner side.
• Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.
• The reward of one's duty is the power to fulfill another.
• No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.
• Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.
• It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees.
• A woman's hopes are woven of sunbeams; a shadow annihilates them.

George Eliot Quotes About Love

Would not love see returning penitence afar off, and fall on its neck and kiss it? — George Eliot

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told I am loved. — George Eliot

Life began with waking up and loving my mother's face. — George Eliot

We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it. — George Eliot

Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words. — George Eliot

Among all the many kinds of first love, that which begins in childish companionship is the strongest and most enduring: when passion comes to unite its force to long affection, love is at its spring-tide. — George Eliot

It is a wonderful subduer, this need of love-this hunger of the heart-as peremptory as that other hunger by which Nature forces us to submit to the yoke, and change the face of the world. — George Eliot

But that intimacy of mutual embarrassment, in which each feels that the other is feeling something, having once existed, its effect is not to be done away with. — George Eliot

No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from. — George Eliot

Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love. — George Eliot

George Eliot Quotes About Friendship

What a wretched lot of old shrivelled creatures we shall be by-and-by. Never mind - the uglier we get in the eyes of others, the lovelier we shall be to each other; that has always been my firm faith about friendship. — George Eliot

Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking. — George Eliot

For character too is a process and an unfolding. . . among our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self confident and disdainful. . . . — George Eliot

Friendships begin with liking or gratitude roots that can be pulled up. — George Eliot

It is hard to believe long together that anything is "worth while," unless there is some eye to kindle in common with our own, some brief word uttered now and then to imply that what is infinitely precious to us is precious alike to another mind. — George Eliot

How unspeakably the lengthening of memories in common endears our old friends! — George Eliot

George Eliot Quotes About Death

Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them. — George Eliot

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

The tread Of coming footsteps cheats the midnight watcher Who holds her heart and waits to hear them pause, And hears them never pause, but pass and die. — George Eliot

Death is the king of this world: 'Tis his park where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain are music for his banquet. — George Eliot

Those only can thoroughly feel the meaning of death who know what is perfect love. — George Eliot

Worldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral. — George Eliot

The years seem to rush by now, and I think of death as a fast approaching end of a journey-double and treble reason for loving as well as working while it is day. — George Eliot

Let thy chief terror be of thine own soul: There, 'mid the throng of hurrying desires That trample o'er the dead to seize their spoil, Lurks vengeance, footless, irresistible As exhaltations laden with slow death, And o'er the fairest troop of captured joys Breathes pallid pestilence. — George Eliot

The saints were cowards who stood by to see Christ crucified: they should have flung themselves Upon the Roman spears, and died in vain-- The grandest death, to die in vain--for love Greater than sways the forces of the world! — George Eliot

Death is the king of this world: 'Tis his park where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain are music for his banquet — George Eliot

George Eliot Quotes About Marriage

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. — George Eliot

That farewell kiss which resembles greeting, that last glance of love which becomes the sharpest pang of sorrow. — George Eliot

A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterwards. — George Eliot

Marriage must be a relation either of sympathy or of conquest. — George Eliot

That's what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he's wise. — George Eliot

The early months of marriage often are times of critical tumult,--whether that of a shrimp pool or of deeper water,--which afterwards subside into cheerful peace. — George Eliot

There are answers which, in turning away wrath, only send it to the other end of the room, and to have a discussion coolly waived when you feel that justice is all on your own side is even more exasperating in marriage than in philosophy. — George Eliot

In the ages since Adam's marriage, it has been good for some men to be alone, and for some women also. — George Eliot

When I married Humphrey I made up my mind to like sermons, and I set out by liking the end very much. That soon spread to the middle and the beginning, because I couldn't have the end without them. — George Eliot

Having once embarked on your marital voyage, it is impossible not to be aware that you make no way and the sea is not within sight; that in fact, you are exploring an enclosed basin. — George Eliot

George Eliot Quotes About Life

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive. — George Eliot

The most solid comfort one can fall back upon is the thought that the business of one's life is to help in some small way to reduce the sum of ignorance, degradation and misery on the face of this beautiful earth. — George Eliot

Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music. — George Eliot

No matter whether failure came A thousand different times, For one brief moment of success, Life rang its golden chimes. — George Eliot

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other? — George Eliot

Life is too precious to be spent in this weaving and unweaving of false impressions, and it is better to live quietly under some degree of misrepresentation than to attempt to remove it by the uncertain process of letter-writing. — George Eliot

These gems have life in them: their colors speak, say what words fail of. — George Eliot

There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows. — George Eliot

What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs? — George Eliot

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone. — George Eliot

George Eliot Quotes About World

The world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome, dubious eggs, called possibilities. — George Eliot

People are so ridiculous with their illusions, carrying their fool's caps unawares, thinking their own lies opaque while everybody else's are transparent, making themselves exceptions to everything, as if when all the world looked yellow under a lamp they alone are rosy. — George Eliot

It was not that she was out of temper, but that the world was not equal to the demands of her fine organism. — George Eliot

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men. — George Eliot

Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self. — George Eliot

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

I don't want the world to give me anything for my books except money enough to save me from the temptation to write only for money. — George Eliot

Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the world. — George Eliot

Worldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral. They have the same effect of grating incongruity as the sound of a coarse voice breaking the solemn silence of night. — George Eliot

Surely it is not true blessedness to be free of sorrow while there is sorrow and sin in the world. Sorrow is a part of love and love does not seek to throw it off. — George Eliot

George Eliot Quotes About Friends

Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles. — George Eliot

The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a definite outline of our ignorance. — George Eliot

A friend is one to whom one may pour out the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away. — George Eliot

Of new acquaintances one can never be sure because one likes them one day that it will be so the next. Of old friends one is sure that it will be the same yesterday, today, and forever. — George Eliot

Animals are such agreeable friends, they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms. — George Eliot

It is easy to say how we love new friends, and what we think of them, but words can never trace out all the fibers that knit us to the old. — George Eliot

Quarrel? Nonsense; we have not quarreled. If one is not to get into a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends? — George Eliot

Best friend, my well-spring in the wilderness! — George Eliot

Where you have friends you should not go to inns. — George Eliot

To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion. — George Eliot

George Eliot Quotes About Made

A woman's heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed recipe. — George Eliot

Hold up your head! You were not made for failure, you were made for victory. Go forward with a joyful confidence. — George Eliot

The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words. — George Eliot

The darkest night that ever fell upon the earth never hid the light, never put out the stars. It only made the stars more keenly, kindly glancing, as if in protest against the darkness. — George Eliot

I'm not denyin' the women are foolish. God Almighty made 'em to match the men. — George Eliot

Life is very difficult. It seems right to me sometimes that we should follow our strongest feelings; but then such feelings continually come across the ties that all our former life has made for us,--the ties that have made others dependent on us,--and would cut them in two. — George Eliot

There is one order of beauty which seems made to turn heads. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle. — George Eliot

It is in these acts called trivialities that the seeds of joy are forever wasted, until men and women look round with haggard faces at the devastation their own waste has made, and say, the earth bears no harvest of sweetness -- calling their denial knowledge. — George Eliot

Oh may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence. — George Eliot

A woman's heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed receipt. — George Eliot

George Eliot Famous Quotes And Sayings

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away. — George Eliot

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life. — George Eliot

Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another. — George Eliot

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive. — George Eliot

That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil -- widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower. — George Eliot

Our passions do not live apart in locked chambers but dress in their small wardrobe of notions, bring their provisions to a common table and mess together, feeding out of the common store according to their appetite. — George Eliot

Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age. — George Eliot

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. — George Eliot

The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down. — George Eliot

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined - to strengthen each other - to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories. — George Eliot

The most powerful movement of feeling with a liturgy is the prayer which seeks for nothing special, but is a yearning to escape from the limitations of our own weakness and an invocation of all Good to enter and abide with us. — George Eliot

May every soul that touches mine - be it the slightest contact - get there from some good; some little grace; one kindly thought; one aspiration yet unfelt; one bit of courage for the darkening sky; one gleam of faith to brave the thickening ills of life; one glimpse of brighter skies beyond the gathering mists - to make this life worthwhile. — George Eliot

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them. — George Eliot

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

It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view. — George Eliot

Nothing at times is more expressive than silence. — George Eliot

I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence. — George Eliot

Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has the pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. — George Eliot

But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope. — George Eliot

A blush is no language; only a dubious flag - signal which may mean either of two contradictories — George Eliot

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. — George Eliot

Iteration, like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of progress. — George Eliot

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us. — George Eliot

My own experience and development deepen everyday my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy. — George Eliot

And, of course men know best about everything, except what women know better. — George Eliot

Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness. — George Eliot

History repeats itself. — George Eliot

One has to spend many years in learning how to be happy. — George Eliot

And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it. — George Eliot

The right to rebellion is the right to seek a higher rule, and not to wander in mere lawlessness. — George Eliot

Our impartiality is kept for abstract merit and demerit, which none of us ever saw. — George Eliot

Impatient people, according to Bacon, are like the bees, and kill themselves in stinging others. — George Eliot

I desire no future that will break the ties with the past. — George Eliot

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. — George Eliot

No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty. — George Eliot

Human beliefs, like all other natural growths, elude the barrier of systems. — George Eliot

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

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving! — George Eliot

It is always good to know, if only in passing, charming human beings. It refreshes one like flowers and woods and clear brooks. — George Eliot

The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief. — George Eliot

It is good to be helpful and kindly, but don't give yourself to be melted into candle grease for the benefit of the tallow trade. — George Eliot

Sympathetic people often don't communicate well, they back reflected images which hide their own depths. — George Eliot

What loneliness is more lonely than distrust? — George Eliot

Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact. — George Eliot

We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven has accorded this to us in the uncritical canine attachment. — George Eliot

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. — George Eliot

Can any man or woman choose duties? No more than they can choose their birthplace or their father and mother. — George Eliot

Eros has degenerated; he began by introducing order and harmony, and now he brings back chaos. — George Eliot

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand. — George Eliot

Justice is like the kingdom of God--it is not without us as a fact, it is within us as a great yearning. — George Eliot

Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are. — George Eliot

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

There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope. — George Eliot

One can say everything best over a meal. — George Eliot

The only failure one should fear, is not hugging to the purpose they see as best. — George Eliot

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving. — George Eliot

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation. — George Eliot

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

No man can be wise on an empty stomach. — George Eliot

The sense of an entailed disadvantage - the deformed foot doubtfully hidden by the shoe, makes a restlessly active spiritual yeast, and easily turns a self-centered, unloving nature into an Ishmaelite. — George Eliot

There is no killing the suspicion that deceit has once begotten. — George Eliot

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure. — George Eliot

Life Lessons by George Eliot

1. George Eliot taught the importance of understanding and accepting people for who they are, no matter their background or circumstances.
2. She also showed the power of resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity, and the importance of staying true to one's values and beliefs.
3. Finally, she emphasized the importance of self-reflection and introspection in order to understand oneself and grow as a person.