Quote

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.

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
Great
Meaning
Banners
Like
Clothes
Banner
Particular
Striking
Common
Occasion
Words
Hung
Use
Occasions
Felt
Everyday
Place
Sacred

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A maggot must be born i' the rotten cheese to like it.
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Well, I aren't like a bird-clapper, forced to make a rattle when the wind blows on me. I can keep my own counsel when there's no good i' speaking.
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I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence.
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There's many a good bit o' work done with a sad heart.
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Miserliness is a capital quality to run in families it's the safe side for madness to dip on.
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It's a strange thing to think of a man as can lift a chair with his teeth, and walk fifty mile on end, trembling and turning hot and cold at only a look from one woman out of all the rest i' the world. It's a mystery we can give no account of.
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... indefinite visions of ambition are weak against the ease of doing what is habitual or beguilingly agreeable.
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We look at the one little woman's face we love, as we look at the face of our mother earth, and see all sorts of answers to our own yearnings.
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Our sense of duty must often wait for some work which shall take the place of dilettanteism [sic] and make us feel that the quality of our action is not a matter of indifference.
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... as usual I am suffering much from doubt as to the worth of what I am doing and fear lest I may not be able to complete it so as to make it a contribution to literature and not a mere addition to the heap of books.
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Music sweeps by me as a messenger - Carrying a message that is not for me
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I think there are stores laid up in our human nature that our understandings can make no complete inventory of.
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Obligation may be stretched till it is no better than a brand of slavery stamped on us when we were too young to know its meaning.
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Habit is the beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectfully and unhappy men to live calmly
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Alas! the scientific conscience had got into the debasing company of money obligation and selfish respects.
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Our consciences are not all of the same pattern.
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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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What is your religion? I mean-not what you know about religion but the belief that helps you most?
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But how little we know what would make paradise for our neighbours! We judge from our own desires, and our neighbours themselves are not always open enough even to throw out a hint of theirs.
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We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none ourselves.
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