Quote

Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual life──the life which has a seed of ennobling thought and purpose within──can understand the grief of one who falls from that serene activity into the absorbing soul-wasting struggle with worldly annoyances.

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
Thought
Grief
Supremacy
Soul
Activity
Absorbing
Life
Intellectual
Wasting
Struggle
Serene
Within
Worldly
Purpose
Seed
Annoyances
Understand
Falls
Ennobling
Fall
Seeds
Annoyance

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To see an enemy humiliated gives a certain contentment, but this is jejune compared with the highly blent satisfaction of seeing him humiliated by your benevolent action or concession on his behalf. That is the sort of revenge which falls into the scale of virtue.
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There is heroism even in the circles of hell for fellow-sinners who cling to each other in the fiery whirlwind and never recriminate.
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In the ages since Adam's marriage, it has been good for some men to be alone, and for some women also.
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To have suffered much is like knowing many languages. Thou hast learned to understand all.
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I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music.
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It always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity only to have one sort of talent - like a carrier pigeon.
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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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It is as useless to fight against the interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog.
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... the business of life shuts us up within the environs of London and within sight of human advancement, which I should be so very glad to believe in without seeing.
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Dear Friends all, A thousand Christmas pleasures and blessings to you -- good resolutions and bright hopes for the New Year! Amen. People who can't be witty exert themselves to be pious or affectionate.
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But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
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It is only a poor sort of happiness that could ever come by caring very much about our own pleasures. We can only have the highest happiness such as goes along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves.
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Men and women are but children of a larger growth.
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Let my body dwell in poverty, and my hands be as the hands of the toiler but let my soul be as a temple of remembrance where the treasures of knowledge enter and the inner sanctuary is hope.
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Inclination snatches arguments To make indulgence seem judicious choice.
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Whatever may be the success of my stories, I shall be resolute in preserving my incognito, having observed that a nom de plume secures all the advantages without the disagreeables of reputation.
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How could a man be satisfied with a decision between such alternatives and under such circumstances No more than he can be satisfied with his hat, which he's chosen from among such shapes as the resources of the age offer him. . . .
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A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.
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Sympathetic people often don't communicate well, they back reflected images which hide their own depths.
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Art is the nearest thing to life it is a mode of amplifying experience and extending our contact with our fellow men beyond the bounds of our personal lot.
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