Quote

... indefinite visions of ambition are weak against the ease of doing what is habitual or beguilingly agreeable.

George Eliot

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Vision
Indefinite
Agreeable
Habitual
Visions
Ease
Ambition
Weak

More quotes by George Eliot

Image
For character too is a process and an unfolding. . . among our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self confident and disdainful. . . .
George Eliot
Image
The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.
George Eliot
Image
There is no hour that has not its births of gladness and despair, no morning brightness that does not bring new sickness to desolation as well as new forces to genius and love. There are so many of us, and our lots are so different, what wonder that Nature's mood is often in harsh contrast with the great crisis of our lives?
George Eliot
Image
The mind that is too ready at contempt and reprobation is, I may say, as a clenched fist that can give blows, but is shut up from receiving and holding ought that is precious.
George Eliot
Image
Selfish— a judgment readily passed by those who have never tested their own power of sacrifice.
George Eliot
Image
What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?
George Eliot
Image
Men and women are but children of a larger growth.
George Eliot
Image
Is it not rather what we expect in men, that they should have numerous strands of experience lying side by side and never compare them with each other?
George Eliot
Image
I think cheerfulness is a fortune in itself.
George Eliot
Image
Few things hold the perception more thoroughly captive than anxiety about what we have got to say
George Eliot
Image
Oh, sir, the loftiest hopes on earth Draw lots with meaner hopes: heroic breasts, Breathing bad air, run risk of pestilence Or, lacking lime-juice when they cross the Line, May languish with the scurvy.
George Eliot
Image
When the animals entered the Ark in pairs, one may imagine that allied species made much private remark on each other, and were tempted to think that so many forms feeding on the same store of fodder were eminently superfluous, as tending to diminish the rations.
George Eliot
Image
Pride only helps us to be generous it never makes us so, any more than vanity makes us witty.
George Eliot
Image
The prevarication and white lies which a mind that keeps itself ambitiously pure is as uneasy under as a great artist under the false touches that no eye detects but his own, are worn as lightly as mere trimmings when once the actions have become a lie.
George Eliot
Image
If we need a true conception of the popular character to guide our sympathies rightly, we need it equally to check our theories, and direct us in their application.
George Eliot
Image
After all, the true seeing is within.
George Eliot
Image
May I reach That purest heaven - be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty. Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, And in the diffusion ever more intense! So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world.
George Eliot
Image
'Character, says Novalis, in one of his questionable aphorisms - character is destiny'.
George Eliot
Image
Joy is the best of wine.
George Eliot
Image
Mighty is the force of motherhood! It transforms all things by its vital heat.
George Eliot