Quotes from George Eliot

Throughout their friendship Deronda had been used to Hans' egotism, but he had never before felt intolerant of it: when Hans, habitually pouring out his own feelings and affairs, had never cared for any detail in return, and, if he chanced to know any, had soon forgotten it

But I wasn't worth doing wrong for---- nothing is in this world. Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

Nature has her language, and she is not unveracious; but we don't know all the intricacies of her syntax just yet, and in a hasty reading we may happen to extract the very opposite of her real meaning.

Where women love each other, men learn to smother their mutual dislike.

Yes, but not my style of woman: I like a woman who lays herself out a little more to please us. There should be a little filigree about a woman--something of the coquette. A man likes a sort of challenge. The more of a dead set she makes at you the better.

It always remains true that if we had been greater, circumstance would have been less strong against us.

we begin by knowing little and believing much, and we sometimes end by inverting the quantities.

The calendar hath not an evil day For souls made one by love, and even death Were sweetness, if it came like rolling waves While they two clasped each other, and foresaw No life apart.

At all events, it is certain that if any medicinal man had come to Middlemarch with the reputation of having very definite religious views, of being given to prayer, and of otherwise showing an active piety, there would have been a general presumption against his medical skill.

Even much stronger mortals than Fred Vincy hold half their rectitude in the mind of the being they love best.

What have you been doing lately?' 'I? Oh, minding the house—pouring out syrup—pretending to be amiable and contented—learning to have a bad opinion of everybody.

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