70 George Eliot Quotes About Love, Life and Friendship

We hope you enjoy this amazing collection of George Eliot quotes!

Eliot might be from the Victorian era, but the words of this timeless author and journalist provide motivation, inspiration and wisdom about human nature that is relevant to our day-to-day lives.

We had a lot of fun searching for some of our favorite motivational George Eliot quotes!

If you like this article, we suggest you explore our most popular quotes article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily encouragement.

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George Eliot Quotes About Love, Life and Friendship

1. “It is always fatal to have music or poetry interrupted.” – George Eliot

2. “Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music.” – George Eliot

3. “Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.” – George Eliot

4. “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” – George Eliot

5. “Animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.” – George Eliot

6. “Best friend, my well-spring in the wilderness!” – George Eliot

7. It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees.” – George Eliot

8. “Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.” – George Eliot

9. “What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?” – George Eliot

10. “Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles.” – George Eliot

Inspirational George Eliot Quotes about friendship

11. “What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life–to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?” – George Eliot

12. “Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” – George Eliot

13. “And, of course men know best about everything, except what women know better.” – George Eliot

14. “It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.” – George Eliot

15. “We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, “Oh, nothing!” Pride helps; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our hurts— not to hurt others.” – George Eliot

16. “My own experience and development deepen everyday my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.” – George Eliot

17. “I wish to use my last hours of ease and strength in telling the strange story of my experience. I have never fully unbosomed myself to any human being; I have never been encouraged to trust much in the sympathy of my fellow-men.” – George Eliot

18. “Our deeds are like children that are born to us; they live and act apart from our own will. Nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never: they have an indestructible life both in and out of our consciousness.” – George Eliot

19. “An ass may bray a good while before he shakes the stars down.” – George Eliot

20. “I’m proof against that word failure. I’ve seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.” – George Eliot

21. “The darkest night that ever fell upon the earth never hid the light, never put out the stars. It only made the stars more keenly, kindly glancing, as if in protest against the darkness.” – George Eliot

22. “The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.” – George Eliot

23. “The difficulty is, to decide how far resolution should set in the direction of activity rather than in the acceptance of a more negative state.” – George Eliot

24. “Examining the world in order to find consolation is very much like looking carefully over the pages of a great book in order to find our own name. … Whether we find what we want or not, our preoccupation has hindered us from a true knowledge of the contents.” – George Eliot

25. “That modern sect of Flagellants who make a ritual of lashing — not themselves but — all their neighbours.” – George Eliot

26. “It’s but little good you’ll do a-watering the last year’s crop.” – George Eliot

George Eliot Quotes about life

27. “You know nothing about Hope, that immortal, delicious maiden forever courted forever propitious, whom fools have called deceitful, as if it were Hope that carried the cup of disappointment, whereas it is her deadly enemy, Certainty, whom she only escapes by transformation.” – George Eliot

28. “It’s them as take advantage that get advantage i’ this world.” – George Eliot

29. “I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.” – George Eliot

30. “The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.” – George Eliot

31. “A maggot must be born in the rotten cheese to like it.” – George Eliot

32. “In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child’s.” – George Eliot

33. “In every parting there is an image of death.” – George Eliot

34. “We hand folks over to God’s mercy, and show none ourselves.” – George Eliot

35. “Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.” – George Eliot

36. “A friend is one to whom one may pour out the contents of one’s heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.” – George Eliot

37. “It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.” – George Eliot

38. “Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.” – George Eliot

George Eliot quotes about love

39. “Be courteous, be obliging, but don’t give yourself over to be melted down for the benefit of the tallow trade.” – George Eliot

40. “I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.” – George Eliot

41. “Ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.” – George Eliot

42. “The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.” – George Eliot

43. “The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.” – George Eliot

44. “The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.” – George Eliot

45. “The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.” – George Eliot

46. “We are all apt to believe what the world believes about us.” – George Eliot

47. “What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined… to strengthen each other… to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.” – George Eliot

48. “Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker.” – George Eliot

If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of gossip quotes that will help you eliminate rumors from your life.

49. “It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much.”― George Eliot

50. “I am not imposed upon by fine words; I can see what actions mean.”― George Eliot

Thought-provoking George Eliot quotes

51. “People are almost always better than their neighbors think they are.”― George Eliot

52. “No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it
are no longer the same interpreters.”― George Eliot

53. “One can begin so many things with a new person! – even begin to be a better man.”― George Eliot

54. “Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.”― George Eliot

55. “One must be poor to know the luxury of giving.”― George Eliot

56. “We have all got to exert ourselves a little to keep sane, and call things by the same names as other people call them by.”― George Eliot

57. “Blameless people are always the most exasperating.”― George Eliot

58. “It is better – it shall be better with me because I have known you.”― George Eliot

59. “I think I dislike what I don’t like more than I like what I like.”― George Eliot

60. “I like not only to be loved, but also to be told I am loved”― George Elliot

More George Eliot quotes and sayings

61. “Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.” – George Eliot

62. “If one is not to get into a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends?” – George Eliot

63. “It is easy to say how we love new friends, and what we think of them, but words can never trace out all the fibers that knit us to the old.” – George Eliot

64. “I never had any preference for her, any more than I have a preference for breathing.” – George Eliot

65. “I should never like scolding anyone else so well; and that is a point to be thought of in a husband.” – George Eliot

66. “A woman may get to love by degrees—the best fire does not flare up the soonest.” – George Eliot

67. “Where women love each other, men learn to smother their mutual dislike.” – George Eliot

68. “I am afraid of nothing but that we should miss the passing of our lives together.” – George Eliot

69. “It will always remain true that if we had been greater, circumstance would have been less strong against us.” – George Eliot

70. “It is not true that love makes all things easy, it makes us chose things that are difficult.” – George Eliot

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