Middlemarch Book II Quotes

“The character of the publican and sinner is not always practically incompatible with that of the modern Pharisee, for the majority of us scarcely see more distinctly the faultiness of our own conduct than the faultiness of our own arguments, or the dullness of our own jokes.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch Book II: Old and Young

“But the door-sill of marriage once crossed, expectation is concentrated on the present. Having once embarked on your marital voyage, it is impossible not to be aware that you make no way and that the sea is not within sight — that in fact, you are exploring an enclosed basin.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch Book II: Old and Young

“And yet he felt as if something had happened to him with regard to her. There are characters which are continually creating collisions and nodes for themselves in dramas which nobody is prepared to act with them. Their susceptibilities will clash against objects that remain innocently quiet.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch Book II: Old and Young

“Oh, I'm not angry, except with the ways of the world. I do like to be spoken to as if I had common sense. I really often feel as if I understand more than I ever hear from young gentlemen who have been to college.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch Book II: Old and Young