Date: 1860

"But you will not always be shut up in your present lot: why should you starve your mind in that way?"

— 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

"While Maggie's life-struggles had lain almost entirely within her own soul, one shadowy army fighting another, and the slain shadows for ever rising again, Tom was engaged in a dustier, noisier warfare, grappling with more substantial obstacles, and gaining more definite conquests."

— 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

"'Ay, sir, you say true,' returned Bob, nodding his head aside, 'I think my head's all alive inside like an old cheese, for I'm so full o' plans, one knocks another over."

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Date: 1860

"What you call self-conquest -- blinding and deafening yourself to all but one train of impressions, is only the culture of monomania in a nature like yours."

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Date: 1860

"And your mind is a sort of world to me - You can tell me all I want to know."

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Date: 1860

"It was one of those dangerous moments when speech is at once sincere and deceptive - when feeling, rising high above its average depth, leaves flood-marks which are never reached again."

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Date: 1860

"Maggie went up to her own room to pour out all that indignant remonstrance, against which Tom's mind was close barred, in bitter tears."

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Date: 1860

"If she had felt that she was entirely wrong and that Tom had been entirely right, she could sooner have recovered more inward harmony, but now her penitence and submission were constantly obstructed by resentment that would present itself to her no otherwise than as just.'"

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)