"but very little achievement is required in order to pity another man's shortcomings."
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Quote collection
George Eliot quotes (page 31 of 51)
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"But indefinite visions of ambition are weak against the ease of doing what is habitual or beguilingly agreeable; and we all know the difficulty of carrying out a resolve when we secretly long that it may turn out to be unnecessary. In such states of mind the most incredulous person has a private leaning towards miracle: impossible to conceive how our wish could be fulfilled, still - very wonderful things have happened!"
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"I shall do everything it becomes me to do."
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"A picture of human life such as a great artist can give, surprises even the trivial and the selfish into that attention to what is apart from themselves, which may be called the raw material of moral sentiment."
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"in certain crises direct expression of sympathy is the least possible to those who most feel sympathy."
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"The sweetest of all success is that which one wins by hard exertion."
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"A bachelor's children are always young: they're immortal children - always lisping, waddling, helpless, and with a chance of turning out good."
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"Alas! the scientific conscience had got into the debasing company of money obligation and selfish respects."
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"I easily sink into mere absorption of what other minds have done, and should like a whole life for that alone."
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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."
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"It so often happens that others are measuring us by our past self while we are looking back on that self with a mixture of disgust and sorrow."
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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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"The men are mostly so slow, their thoughts overrun 'em, an' they can only catch 'em by the tail. I can count a stocking-top while a man's getting's tongue ready; an' when he outs wi' his speech at last, there's little broth to be made on't. It's your dead chicks take the longest hatchin'."
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"As to memory, it is known that this frail faculty naturally lets drop the facts which are less flattering to our self-love - when it does not retain them carefully as subjects not to be approached, marshy spots with a warning flag over them."
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"The first sense of mutual love excludes other feelings; it will have the soul all to itself."
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"You know I have duties──we both have duties──before which feeling must be sacrificed."
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"She was no longer struggling against the perception of facts, but adjusting herself to their clearest perception."
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"... one always believes one's own town to be more stupid than any other."
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"I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offense. ... Everyone who contributes to the 'too much' of literature is doing grave social injury."
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"Satan was a blunderer ... who made a stupendous failure. If he had succeeded, we should all have been worshipping him, and his portrait would have been more flattering."
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