gianina’s Reviews > Middlemarch > Status Update

“Certainly those determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful. They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion. For there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside of it.”

“But my dear Mrs. Casaubon,” said Mr. Farebrother, smiling gently at her ardour, “character is not cut in marble – it is not solid and unalterable. It is living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.”

“Then it may be rescued and healed,” said Dorothea.

“If youth is the season of hope, it is only in the sense that our elders are hopeful for us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new.”

“Why should our pride make such a stir to be/ And be forgot? What good is like to this,/ To do worthy the writing, and to write/ Worthy the reading and the world’s delight”

“Art is an old language with a great many artificial affected styles, and sometimes the chief pleasure one gets out of knowing them is the mere sense of knowing.”

“We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, “Oh, nothing!” Pride helps us; pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts – not to hurt others.”