"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."

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More quotes from: George Eliot

• "A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections. "
• "A woman's heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must ..."
• "Acting is nothing more or less than playing. The idea is to humanize life. "
• "Adventure is not outside man; it is within. "
• "All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation. "
• "All the learnin' my father paid for was a bit o' birch at one end ..."
• "An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest ..."
• "And when a woman's will is as strong as the man's who wants to govern ..."
• "Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love. "
• "Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms. "
• "Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning, but give me the ..."
• "Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them. "
• "Best friend, my well-spring in the wilderness! "
• "Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another. "
• "Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of ..."
• "Blows are sarcasm's turned stupid. "
• "Breed is stronger than pasture. "
• "But human experience is usually paradoxical, that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk ..."
• "But most of us are apt to settle within ourselves that the man who blocks ..."
• "But that intimacy of mutual embarrassment, in which each feels that the other is feeling ..."
• "But the mother's yearning, that completest type of the life in another life which is ..."
• "Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful ..."
• "Consequences are unpitying. "
• "Death is the king of this world: 'Tis his park where he breeds life to ..."
• "Different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections. "
• "Excessive literary production is a social offense. "
• "Friendships begin with liking or gratitude roots that can be pulled up. "
• "Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who ..."
• "Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought ..."
• "Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of ..."
• "He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow. "
• "Here undoubtedly lies the chief poetic energy: -in the force of imagination that pierces or ..."
• "I at least have so much to do in unraveling certain human lots, and seeing ..."
• "I desire no future that will break the ties with the past. "
• "I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence. "
• "I hold it a blasphemy to say that a man ought not to fight against ..."
• "I like not only to be loved, but to be told I am loved. "
• "I like trying to get pregnant. I'm not so sure about childbirth. "
• "I tell you there isn't a thing under the sun that needs to be done ..."
• "I'm not denyin' the women are foolish. God Almighty made 'em to match the men. "
• "I'm proof against that word failure. I've seen behind it. The only failure a man ..."
• "If we use common words on a great occasion, they are the more striking, because ..."

• "Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as ..."
• "In all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of dullness. "
• "In spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and ..."
• "In the schoolroom her quick mind had taken readily that strong starch of unexplained rules ..."
• "In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause. "
• "Is it not rather what we expect in men, that they should have numerous strands ..."
• "It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a ..."
• "It is easy to say how we love new friends, and what we think of ..."
• "It is generally a feminine eye that first detects the moral deficiencies hidden under the ..."
• "It is never too late to be what you might have been. "
• "It is, I fear, but a vain show of fulfilling the heathen precept, "Know thyself," ..."
• "It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant ..."
• "Iteration, like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of progress. "
• "Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest ..."
• "Kisses honeyed by oblivion. "
• "Life is too precious to be spent in this weaving and unweaving of false impressions, ..."
• "Might, could, would - they are contemptible auxiliaries. "
• "More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not ..."
• "My own experience and development deepen everyday my conviction that our moral progress may be ..."
• "No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty. "
• "No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we ..."
• "Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand. "
• "One must be poor to know the luxury of giving! "
• "One way of getting an idea of our fellow-countrymen's miseries is to go and look ..."
• "Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual life can understand the grief of ..."
• "Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution. "
• "Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without ..."
• "Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them. "
• "Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds. "
• "Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us ..."
• "Our instructed vagrancy, which has hardly time to linger by the hedgerows, but runs away ..."
• "Our words have wings, but fly not where we would. "
• "People who can't be witty exert themselves to be devout and affectionate. "
• "Perhaps his might be one of the natures where a wise estimate of consequences is ..."
• "Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, ..."
• "Quarrel? Nonsense; we have not quarreled. If one is not to get into a rage ..."
• "She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as ..."
• "That farewell kiss which resembles greeting, that last glance of love which becomes the sharpest ..."
• "That's what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one ..."
• "The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a definite ..."
• "The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words. "

• "The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing ..."
• "The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history. "
• "The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by ..."
• "The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from the perfect ..."
• "The only failure one should fear, is not hugging to the purpose they see as ..."
• "The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another. "
• "The sons of Judah have to choose that God may again choose them. The divine ..."
• "The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice. "
• "The tendancy of liberals is to create bodies of men and women-of all classes-detached from ..."
• "The world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome, dubious eggs, called possibilities. "
• "The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to ..."
• "There are many victories worse than a defeat. "
• "There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be ..."
• "There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire; it is hardly a ..."
• "There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of ..."
• "There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true ..."
• "'Tis God gives skill, but not without men's hand: He could not make Antonio Stradivarius's ..."
• "To act with doubleness towards a man whose own conduct was double, was so near ..."
• "To have in general but little feeling, seems to be the only security against feeling ..."
• "We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none ourselves. "
• "We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven has accorded this to ..."
• "We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have ..."
• "We must not inquire too curiously into motives... They are apt to become feeble in ..."
• "We must not sit still and look for miracles; up and doing, and the Lord ..."
• "Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles. "
• "What a wretched lot of old shrivelled creatures we shall be by-and-by. Never mind - ..."
• "What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other? "
• "What do we live for; if it is not to make life less difficult to ..."
• "What loneliness is more lonely than distrust? "
• "What makes life dreary is the want of a motive. "
• "What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of ..."
• "When death comes it is never our tenderness that we repent from, but our severity. "
• "When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent ..."
• "When one wanted one's interests looking after whatever the cost, it was not so well ..."
• "Whether happiness may come or not, one should try and prepare one's self to do ..."
• "Who has not felt the beauty of a woman's arm? The unspeakable suggestions of tenderness ..."
• "Worldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral. They have the same effect ..."
• "Would not love see returning penitence afar off, and fall on its neck and kiss ..."
• "You may try but you can never imagine what it is to have a man's ..."