George Eliot Quotes

A man's true secrets are more secret to himself than they are to others.

I usually only draw myself in down periods... I suppose that's why I often draw myself looking grim. I just think, 'Let's have a look in the mirror.' When you are alone and you look in a mirror you never put on a pleasing smile. Well, you don't, do you?

Do not be misled by a person's prayers and fasting. [Instead] look [at their] sincerity and wisdom.

Men must be honest with themselves before they can be honest with others. A man who is not honest with himself presents a hopeless case.

You can tell other people all the alibis you want. I don't mind. But to yourself try to be honest.

My mirror probes down to the heart. I write words on the forehead and around the corners of the mouth. My human faces are truer than the real ones.

It is difficult to see ourselves as we are. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to have good friends, lovers or others who will do us the good service of telling us the truth about ourselves. When we don't, we can so easily delude ourselves, lose a sense of truth about ourselves, and our conscience loses power and purpose. Mostly, we tell ourselves what we would like to hear. We lose our way.

Perhaps there is no other knowing than the mere competence of the act. If at the heart of one's being, there is no self to which one ought to be true, then sincerity is simply nerve; it lies in the unabashed vigor of the pretense. But pretense is only pretense when it is assumed that the act is not true to the agent. Find the agent.

Every man is wholly honest to himself and to God, but not to any one else.

Remain true to yourself, child. If you know your own heart, you will always have one friend who does not lie.

I didn't truly understand the depth of my roots until I was old enough to wonder and care.

An honest self-portrait is extremely rare because a man who has reached the degree of self-consciousness presupposed by the desire to paint his own portrait has almost always also developed an ego-consciousness which paints himself painting himself, and introduces artificial highlights and dramatic shadows.

I think a lot, but I don't say much.

After I have said what is required by my vanity and my morality, I may find a moment for Truth.

Speaking uses us up, speeds us up. Without prayer, that act of confession for merely existing, one might live forever and not know it.

Self-portraits are a way of revealing something about oneself.

I [who] am perpetually making notes in the margin of my mind for some final statement.

Meditation requires courage. It requires the basic integrity, sincerity, respect towards your own being. At least don't deceive yourself.

One truth discovered, one pang of regret at not being able to express it, is better than all the fluency and flippancy in the world.

The unconscious wants truth. It ceases to speak to those who want something else more than truth.

Everything we do, our entire interior monologue, is prayer.

. . . the fools of this world prefer to look for sages far away. They don't believe that the wisdom of their own mind is the sage . . . the sutras say, "Mind is the teaching." But people of no understanding don't believe in their own mind or that by understanding this teaching they can become a sage. They prefer to look for distant knowledge and long for things in space, buddha-images, light, incense, and colors. They fall prey to falsehood and lose their minds to insanity.

It is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self knowledge.

We don't ruminate during a fight. Maybe in a bath, or driving a car, or as we take a walk. But not right smack in the middle of a dramatic moment.

Because until we write it down, we don't know what is actually at the root of our lives.