there are two ways of speaking an audience will always like: one is, to tell them what they don't understand; and the other is, to tell them what they're used to. George Eliot More Quotes by George Eliot More Quotes From George Eliot Quick souls have their intensest life in the first anticipatory sketch of what may or will be, and the pursuit of their wish is the pursuit of that paradisiacal vision which only impelled them, and is left farther and farther behind, vanishing forever even out of hope in the moment which is called success. George Eliot vision soul forever There are but two sorts of government: one where men show their teeth at each other, and one where men show their tongues and lick the feet of the strongest. George Eliot feet men two The disappointments of life can never, any more than its pleasures, be estimated singly; and the healthiest and most agreeable of men is exposed to that coincidence of various vexations, each heightening the effect of the other, which may produce in him something corresponding to the spontaneous and externally unaccountable moodiness of the morbid and disagreeable. George Eliot vexation disappointment may All things except reason and order are possible with a mob. George Eliot all-things reason order It belongs to every large nature, when it is not under the immediate power of some strong unquestioning emotion, to suspect itself, and doubt the truth of its own impressions, conscious of possibilities beyond its own horizon. George Eliot horizon strong doubt I cherish my childish loves--the memory of that warm little nest where my affections were fledged. George Eliot nests littles memories The human heart finds nowhere shelter but in human kind. George Eliot shelter heart sympathy The soul of man, when it gets fairly rotten, will bear you all sorts of poisonous toad-stools, and no eye can see whence came the seed thereof. George Eliot eye soul men What believer sees a disturbing omission or infelicity? The text, whether of prophet or of poet, expands for whatever we can put into it, and even his bad grammar is sublime. George Eliot omission sublime poet Our consciences are not all of the same pattern. George Eliot conscience patterns When you've been used to doing things, and they've been taken away from you, it's as if your hands had been cut off, and you felt the fingers as are of no use to you. George Eliot cutting taken hands 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 breathing air running Deeds are the pulse of Time, his beating life, And righteous or unrighteous, being done, Must throb in after-throbs till Time itself Be laid in stillness, and the universe Quiver and breathe upon no mirror more. George Eliot pulse mirrors done Religion can only change when the emotions which fill it are changed; and the religion of personal fear remains nearly at the level of the savage. George Eliot savages levels emotion Man finds his pathways: at first they were foot-tracks, as those of the beast in the wilderness; now they are swift and invisible: his thought dives through the ocean, and his wishes thread the air: has he found all the pathways yet? What reaches him, stays with him, rules him: he must accept it, not knowing its pathway. George Eliot ocean air men When we are dead : it is the living only who cannot be forgiven the living only from whom men's indulgence and reverence are held off, like the rain by the hard east wind . George Eliot rain wind men A man's a man. But when you see a king, you see the work of many thousand men. George Eliot royalty kings men 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 names order book Knightly love is blent with reverence As heavenly air is blent with heavenly blue. George Eliot air blue love-is Inclination snatches arguments To make indulgence seem judicious choice. George Eliot indulgence argument choices
