Wise, Witty and Tender Sayings in Prose and Verse,: Selected from the Works of George Eliot

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W. Blackwood and sons, 1875 - 417 pages

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Page 23 - there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.
Page 109 - We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it, — if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass — the same hips and haws on the autumn hedgerows — the same redbreasts that we used to call ' God's birds,' because they did no harm to the precious crops.
Page 211 - We can only have the highest happiness, such as goes along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts, and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves ; and this sort of happiness often brings so much pain with it that we can only tell it from pain by its being what we would choose before every thing else, because our souls see it is good.
Page 155 - 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 toward a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's.
Page 42 - And I would not, even if I had the choice, be the clever novelist who could create a world so much better than this, in which we get up in the morning to do our daily work, that you would be likely to turn a harder, colder eye on the dusty streets and the common green fields — on the real breathing men and women, who can be chilled by your indifference or injured by your prejudice ; who can be cheered and helped onward by your fellow-feeling, your forbearance, your outspoken, brave justice.
Page 65 - Look there, now! I can't abide to see men throw away their tools i' that way, the minute the clock begins to strike, as if they took no pleasure i' their work, and was afraid o

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