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George Eliot

9 free books by George Eliot. 9 you can read right here.

Born 1819 in Nuneaton · Died 1880 in London

writer, novelist, poet, essayist, journalist · United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland · associated with literary realism

Notable works: The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, Adam Bede

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Facts from Wikidata (Q131333), retrieved 2026-09-26.

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Quotes from George Eliot’s books

Verified word for word in the text: each quote is copied exactly from the book’s text in this site’s reader (the Project Gutenberg e-text named under each book) and links to its passage; when this page was built, every quote was checked word for word against that text. How RedLectern is built.

Middlemarch

From Project Gutenberg e-text #145 (public domain in the USA).

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

Chapter LXXXVIRead in context →

To think with pleasure of his niece’s husband having a large ecclesiastical income was one thing—to make a Liberal speech was another thing; and it is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.

Chapter VIIRead in context →

All 11 quotes from Middlemarch →

The Mill on the Floss

From Project Gutenberg e-text #6688 (public domain in the USA).

Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love, and that Tom and Lucy should do or see anything of which she was ignorant would have been an intolerable idea to Maggie.

X. Maggie Behaves Worse Than She ExpectedRead in context →

But if Maggie had been that young lady, you would probably have known nothing about her: her life would have had so few vicissitudes that it could hardly have been written; for the happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.

III. Confidential MomentsRead in context →

All 19 quotes from The Mill on the Floss →

Adam Bede

From Project Gutenberg e-text #507 (public domain in the USA).

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds, and until we know what has been or will be the peculiar combination of outward with inward facts, which constitutes a man’s critical actions, it will be better not to think ourselves wise about his character.

XXIX. The Next MorningRead in context →

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life—to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?

LIV. The Meeting on the HillRead in context →

All 12 quotes from Adam Bede →

Daniel Deronda

From Project Gutenberg e-text #7469 (public domain in the USA).

No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter LVII

Read in context →

It is one thing to see your road, another to cut it.

Chapter XXXIIRead in context →

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