"If we use common words on a great occasion, they are the more striking, because they are felt at once to have a particular meaning, like old banners, or everyday clothes, hung up in a sacred place."

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More quotes from: George Eliot

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• "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. "
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• "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 should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is ..."
• "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 ..."

• "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 ..."
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• "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 ..."
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• "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 ..."
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• "The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another. "
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• "To act with doubleness towards a man whose own conduct was double, was so near ..."
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• "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? "
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• "You may try but you can never imagine what it is to have a man's ..."