Quotes from George Eliot

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

how was a man to be explained unless you at least knew somebody who knew his father and mother?

What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?

A man's mind—what there is of it—has always the advantage of being masculine,—as the smallest birch-tree is of a higher kind than the most soaring palm,—and even his ignorance is of a sounder quality.

it had already occurred to him that books were stuff, and that life was stupid. His school studies had not much modified that opinion...

In young, childish, ignorant souls there is constantly this blind trust in some unshapen chance: it is as hard to a boy or girl to believe that a great wretchedness will actually befall them as to believe that they will die.

Ignorance is not so damnable as humbug; but when it prescribes pills it may happen to do more harm.

There is a remnant still of last year's golden clusters of beehive-ricks rising at intervals beyond the hedgerows; and everywhere the hedgerows are studded with trees; (..) Just by the red-roofed town the tributary Ripple flows with a lively current into the Floss. How lovely the little river is, with its dark changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice

She was not coldly clever and indirectly satirical, but adorably simple and full of feeling.

But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know.

It was said of him, that Lydgate could do anything he liked, but he had certainly not yet liked to do anything remarkable. He was a vigorous animal with a ready understanding, but no spark had yet kindled in him an intellectual passion; knowledge seemed to him a very superficial affair, easily mastered: judging from the conversation of his elders, he had apparently got already more than was necessary for mature life.

A character at unity with itself —that performs what it intends, subdues every counteracting impulse, and has no visions beyond the distinctly possible —is strong by its very negations.