Quotes from George Eliot

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

A man deep-wounded may feel too much pain To feel much anger.

Until every good man is brave, we must expect to find many good women timid--too timid even to believe in the correctness of their own best promptings, when these would place them in a minority.

Man cannot choose his duties.

Consequences are unpitying. Our deeds carry their terrible consequences, quite apart from any fluctuations that went before—consequences that are hardly ever confined to ourselves. And it is best to fix our minds on that certainty, instead of considering what may be the elements of excuse for us.

But I think it is hardly an argument against a man's general strength of character, that he should be apt to be mastered by love. A fine constitution doesn't insure one against small-pox or any other of those inevitable diseases. A man may be very firm in other matters, and yet be under a sort of witchery from a woman.

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

"You must love this place very much," said Miss Fenn... "So many homes are like twenty others. But this is unique, and you seem to know every cranny of it. I dare say you could never love another home so well." "Oh, I carry it with me," said Deronda... "To most men their early home is no more than a memory of their early years... The image is never marred. There's no disappointment in memory, and one's exaggerations are always on the good side."

A woman's rank Lies in the fulness of her womanhood: Therein alone she is royal.

I don't see how a man is to be good for much unless he has some one woman to love him dearly.

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

... there is a lightness about the feminine mind--a touch and go--music, the fine arts, that kind of thing--they should study those up to a certain point, women should; but in a light way, you know.