Kelly’s Reviews > Middlemarch > Status Update

“…to take more emphatic notice of him; …to be something more special in her remembrance than he could yet believe himself likely to be.” p218

“The best piety is to enjoy - when you can. You are doing the most then to save the earth’s character as an agreeable planet. And enjoyment radiates. It is of no use to try and take care of all the world; that is being taken care of when you feel delight…” p219

“…he was as genuine a character as any ruminant animal,…” p195 😂

“What was fresh to her mind was worn out to his;…a lifeless embalmment of knowledge.” p196

“All those rows of volumes - will you not now do what you used to speak of? - Will you not make up your mind what part of them you will use, and begin to write the book which will make your vast knowledge useful to the world?” p200

“…and she had ended by oftenest choosing to drive out to the Campagna where she could feel alone with the earth and sky,…” p193

“Some discouragement, some faintness of heart at the new real future which replaces the imaginary, is not unusual, and we do not expect people to be deeply moved by what is not unusual.” p194

“Nobody had anything to say against Mr. Tyke, except that they could no bear him,…” p179

“Lydgate was feeling the hampering threadlike pressure of small social conditions, and their frustrating complexity.” p180

“She had brought up her children to wear flannel and not to over-eat themselves, which last habit she considered the chief reason why people needed doctors.” p169

“When you get me a good man made out of arguments, I will get you a good dinner with reading you the cookery book.” p170 😆

“He went through a great deal of spiritual conflict and inward argument in order to adjust his motives, and make clear to himself what God’s glory required.” p156

“…one’s self-satisfaction is an untaxed kind of property which it is very unpleasant to find depreciated.” p157

“…educated to a ridiculous pitch- what was the use of accomplishments which would be laid aside as she was married?” p 167

“For in the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little.” p144

…character too is a process and an unfolding. The man was still in the making…” p149

“It seems to me very miserable not to resolve on some course and act accordingly.” p137

“When a conversation has taken a wrong turn for us, we get only farther and farther into the swamp of awkwardness.” p138

“And to me it is one of the most odious things in a girl’s life, that there must always be some supposition of falling in love coming between her and any man who is kind to her, and to whom she is grateful.” p136

“I think any hardship is is better than pretending to do what one is paid for, and never really doing it.” p137

“…found the form which Lydgate had given to his agreement not quite suited to his comprehension. Under such circumstances a judicious man changes the topic and enters on ground where his own gifts may be more useful.” p125

“To point out other people’s errors was a duty that Mr. Bulstrode rarely shrank from, …” p128