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George Eliot on Love

1819–1880 England

← All quotes by George Eliot

14 quotes

Affection is the broadest basis of a good life.

But is it what we love, or how we love,
That makes true good?

The Spanish Gypsy (1868)

Knightly love is blent with reverence
As heavenly air is blent with heavenly blue.

The Spanish Gypsy (1868)

Love does not aim simply at the conscious good of the beloved object: it is not satisfied without perfect loyalty of heart; it aims at its own completeness.

Romola (1863)

Beauteous Night lay dead
Under the pall of twilight, and the love-star
sickened and shrank.

The Spanish Gypsy (1868)

Women know no perfect love:
Loving the strong, they can forsake the strong;
Man clings because the being whom he loves
Is weak and needs him.

The Spanish Gypsy (1868)

People who love downy peaches are apt not to think of the stone, and sometimes jar their teeth terribly against it.

Adam Bede (1859)

'Tis what I love determines how I love.

The Spanish Gypsy (1868)

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return . . .

Daniel Deronda (1876)

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 kind. 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.

Love has a way of cheating itself consciously, like a child who plays at solitary hide-and-seek; it is pleased with assurances that it all the while disbelieves.

Adam Bede (1859)

No eye saw him, while with loving pride
Each voice with each in praise of Jubal vied.

The Legend of Jubal (1869)

We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it...

The Mill on the Floss (1860)

But then the need of being loved, the strongest need ... in poor Maggie's nature, began to wrestle with her pride and soon threw it.

The Mill on the Floss (1860)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: George Eliot (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.