Date: 1860

"Whence Mr Stelling concluded that Tom's brain being peculiarly impervious to etymology and demonstrations, was peculiarly in need of being ploughed and harrowed by these patent implements: it was his favourite metaphor, that the classics and geometry constituted that culture of the mind which pr...

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Date: 1860

"A girl of no startling appearance, and who will never be a Sappho or a Madame Roland or anything else that the world takes wide note of, may still hold forces within her as the living plant-seed does, which will make a way for themselves, often in a shattering, violent manner."

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Date: 1860

"Certain seeds which are required to find a nidus for themselves under unfavourable circumstances have been supplied by nature with an apparatus of hooks, so that they will get a hold on very unreceptive surfaces. The spiritual seed which had been scattered over Mr Tulliver had apparently been de...

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Date: 1860

"Then -- the pity of it that a mind like hers should be withering in its very youth, like a young forest tree, for want of the light and space it was formed to flourish in!"

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Date: 1860

"For Tom had never desired success in this field of enterprise: and for getting a fine flourishing growth of stupidity there is nothing like pouring out on a mind a good amount of subjects in which it feels no interest."

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Date: 1860

"To have no cloud between herself and Tom was still a perpetual yearning in her, that had its root deeper than all change."

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Date: 1871-2, 1874

"A man's mind---what there is of it---has always the advantage of being masculine,---as the smallest birch-tree is of a higher kind than the most soaring palm,---and even his ignorance is of a sounder quality."

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Date: 1871-2, 1874

"If it had really occurred to Mr Casaubon to think of Miss Brooke as a suitable wife for him, the reasons that might induce her to accept him were already planted in her mind, and by the evening of the next day the reasons had budded and bloomed."

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)