Middlemarch

By George Eliot

QUOTATION: Would not love see returning penitence afar off, and fall on its neck and kiss it?
ATTRIBUTION: George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans] (1819–1880), British novelist, editor. Middlemarch, bk. 2, ch. 21 (1871).

QUOTATION: Might, could, would—they are contemptible auxiliaries.
ATTRIBUTION: George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans] (1819–1880), British novelist. Mary Garth, in Middlemarch, bk. 2, ch. 14 (1872).

QUOTATION: ... one’s self-satisfaction is an untaxed kind of property which it is very unpleasant to find depreciated.
ATTRIBUTION: George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans] (1819–1880), British novelist. Middlemarch, ch. 16 (1871-1872).

QUOTATION: ... we all know the wag’s definition of a philanthropist: a man whose charity increases directly as the square of the distance.
ATTRIBUTION: George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans] (1819–1880), British novelist. Middlemarch, ch. 38 (1871-1872).

QUOTATION: The best piety is to enjoy ...
ATTRIBUTION: George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans] (1819–1880), British novelist. Middlemarch, ch. 22 (1871-1872).

QUOTATION: Fine art, poetry, that kind of thing, elevates a nation ...
ATTRIBUTION: George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans] (1819–1880), British novelist. Middlemarch, ch. 39 (1871-1872).

QUOTATION: ... very little achievement is required in order to pity another man’s shortcomings.
ATTRIBUTION: George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans] (1819–1880), British novelist. Middlemarch, ch. 21 (1871–1872).

QUOTATION: What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?
ATTRIBUTION: George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans] (1819–1880), British novelist. Middlemarch, ch. 72 (1871-1872).

QUOTATION: ... there is no human being who having both passions and thoughts does not think in consequence of his passions.
ATTRIBUTION: George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans] (1819–1880), British novelist. Middlemarch, ch. 47 (1871-1872).

QUOTATION: ... indefinite visions of ambition are weak against the ease of doing what is habitual or beguilingly agreeable.
ATTRIBUTION: George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans] (1819–1880), British novelist. Middlemarch, ch. 60 (1871-1872).

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