Quote

That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil -- widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower.

George Eliot

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George Eliot
Age: 61 †
Born: 1819
Born: November 22
Died: 1880
Died: December 22
Editor
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Philosopher
Poet
Translator
Writer
Mary Anne Evans
Mary Ann Evans
Marian Evans
Mary Anne Evans Cross
Mary Anne Cross
Would
Evil
Widening
Making
Desiring
Cannot
Skirts
Light
Perfectly
Part
Darkness
Power
Divine
Even
Struggle
Middlemarch
Good
Quite
Narrower

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Explain! Tell a man to explain how he dropped into hell! Explain my preference! I never had a PREFERENCE for her, any more than I have a preference for breathing. No other woman exists by the side of her. I would rather touch her hand if it were dead, than I would touch any other woman's living.
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My books don't seem to belong to me after I have once written them and I find myself delivering opinions about them as if I had nothing to do with them.
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Poor dog! I've a strange feeling about the dumb things as if they wanted to speak, and it was a trouble to 'em because they couldn't. I can't help being sorry for the dogs always, though perhaps there's no need. But they may well have more in them than they know how to make us understand, for we can't say half what we feel, with all our words.
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I've always felt that your belongings have never been on a level with you.
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The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.
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A woman's heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed recipe.
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Religion, like all things, begins with self, And naught is known, until one knows himself.
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Falsehood is easy, truth so difficult.
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To most mortals there is a stupidity which is unendurable and a stupidity which is altogether acceptable - else, indeed, what would become of social bonds?
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There's no disappointment in memory, and one's exaggerations are always on the good side.
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History repeats itself.
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There is nothing that will kill a man so soon as having nobody to find fault with but himself.
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Unhappily the habit of being offensive 'without meaning it' leads usually to a way of making amends which the injured person cannot but regard as a being amiable without meaning it.
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What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined - to strengthen each other - to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.
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In the love of a brave and faithful man there is always a strain of maternal tenderness he gives out again those beams of protecting fondness which were shed on him as he lay on his mother's knee.
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When a workman knows the use of his tools, he can make a door as well as a window.
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Those who trust us educate us.
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