Quote

The select natures who pant after the ideal, and find nothing in pantaloons or petticoats great enough to command their reverence and love, are curiously in unison with the narrowest and pettiest.

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
Ideals
Pant
Find
Curiously
Nothing
Unison
Enough
Natures
Great
Select
Love
Reverence
Ideal
Command
Narrowest

More quotes by George Eliot

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Consequences are unpitying.
George Eliot
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Our passions do not live apart in locked chambers but dress in their small wardrobe of notions, bring their provisions to a common table and mess together, feeding out of the common store according to their appetite.
George Eliot
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When we are suddenly released from an acute absorbing bodily pain, our heart and senses leap out in new freedom we think even the noise of streets harmonious, and are ready to hug the tradesman who is wrapping up our change.
George Eliot
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It is always fatal to have music or poetry interrupted.
George Eliot
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Particular lies may speak a general truth.
George Eliot
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If a man goes a little too far along a new road, it is usually himself that he harms more than any one else.
George Eliot
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I tell you there isn't a thing under the sun that needs to be done at all, but what a man can do better than a woman, unless it's bearing children, and they do that in a poor make-shift way it had better ha been left to the men.
George Eliot
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Doesn't this quote just call up feelings of comfort and home? Comparing friendship to the nest a bird lives in and builds with loving determination reminds me that having a solid relationship takes work and dedication. And yet, when you succeed in crafting a friendship, you can rest in the comfort it provides.
George Eliot
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Souls have complexions too: what will suit one will not suit another
George Eliot
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There is much pain that is quite noiseless and vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence.
George Eliot
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Starting a long way off the true point, and proceeding by loops and zigzags , we now and then arrive just where we ought to be.
George Eliot
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So deeply inherent is it in this life of ours that men have to suffer for each other's sins, so inevitably diffusive is human suffering, that even justice makes its victims, and we can conceive no retribution that does not spread beyond its mark in pulsations of unmerited pain.
George Eliot
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You have such strong words at command, that they make the smallest argument seem formidable.
George Eliot
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It's them as take advantage that get advantage I' this world, I think: folks have to wait long enough afore it's brought to 'em.
George Eliot
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I am open to conviction on all points except dinner and debts. I hold that the one must be eaten and the other paid.
George Eliot
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Life is too precious to be spent in this weaving and unweaving of false impressions, and it is better to live quietly under some degree of misrepresentation than to attempt to remove it by the uncertain process of letter-writing.
George Eliot
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Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning.
George Eliot
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How oft review each finding, like a friend, Something to blame, and something to commend.
George Eliot
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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.
George Eliot
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I couldn't live in peace if I put the shadow of a willful sin between myself and God.
George Eliot