# Silas Marner - Author: [George Eliot](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot.md) - Quotes: 22 - Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner ## Quotes > when a man had deserved his good luck, it was the part of his neighbours to wish him joy. p. 183 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/when-a-man.md) > She was perfectly quiet now, but not asleep — only soothed by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide-gazing calm which makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in the presence of a little child, such as we feel before some quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky — before a steady glowing planet, or a full-flowered eglantine, or the bending trees over a silent pathway. p. 118 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/she-was-perfectly.md) > "Ah," said Dolly, with soothing gravity, "it's like the night and the morning, and the sleeping and the waking, and the rain and the harvest — one goes and the other comes, and we know nothing how nor where. We may strive and scrat and fend, but it's little we can do arter all — the big things come and go wi' no striving o' our'n — they do, that they do; and I think you're in the right on it to keep the little un, Master Marner, seeing as it's been sent to you, though there's folks as thinks different." p. 121 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/ah-said-dolly.md) > It is seldom that the miserable can help regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable. p. 107 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/it-is-seldom.md) > That quiet mutual gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like the first moment of rest or refuge from a great weariness or a great danger — not to be interfered with by speech or action which would distract the sensations from the fresh enjoyment of repose. p. 174 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/that-quiet-mutual.md) > I suppose one reason why we are seldom able to comfort our neighbours with our words is that our goodwill gets adulterated, in spite of ourselves, before it can pass our lips. We can send black puddings and petticoes without giving them a flavour of our own egoism; but language is a stream that is almost sure to smack of a mingled soil. There was a fair proportion of kindness in Raveloe; but it was often of a beery and bungling sort, and took the shape least allied to the complimentary and hypocritical. p. 77 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/i-suppose-one.md) > He fled to his usual refuge, that of hoping for some unforeseen turn of fortune, some favourable chance which would save him from unpleasant consequences – perhaps even justify his insincerity by manifesting prudence. > > In this point of trusting in some throw of fortune's dice, Godfrey can hardly be called old-fashioned. Favourable Chance is the god of all men who follow their own devices instead of obeying a law they believe in. Let even a polished man of these days get into a position he is ashamed to avow, and his mind will be bent on all the possible issues that may deliver him from the calculable results of that position. Let him live outside his income, or shirk the resolute honest work that brings wages, and he will presently find himself dreaming of a possible benefactor, a possible simpleton who may be cajoled into using his interest, a possible state of mind in some possible person not yet forthcoming. Let him neglect the responsibilities of his office, and he will inevitably anchor himself on the chance, that the thing left undone may turn out not to be of the supposed importance. Let him betray his friend's confidence, and he will adore that same cunning complexity called Chance, which gives him the hope that his friend will never know. Let him forsake a decent craft that he may pursue the gentilities of a profession to which nature never called him, and his religion will infallibly be the worship of blessed Chance, which he will believe in as the mighty creator of success. The evil principle deprecated in that religion, is the orderly sequence by which the seed brings forth a crop after its kind. p. 73 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/he-fled-to-his.md) > In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's. p. 131 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/in-old-days.md) > He had a sense that the old man meant to be good-natured and neighbourly; but the kindness fell on him as sunshine falls on the wretched — he had no heart to taste it, and felt that it was very far off him. p. 79 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/he-had-a-sense.md) > Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand - ... p. 163 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/nothing-is-so-good.md) > Formerly, his heart had been as a locked casket with its treasure inside; but now the casket was empty, and the lock was broken. Left groping in darkness, with his prop utterly gone, Silas had inevitably a sense, though a dull and half-despairing one, that if any help came to him it must come from without; and there was a slight stirring of expectation at the sight of his fellow-men, a faint consciousness of dependence on their goodwill. p. 81 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/formerly-his-heart.md) > He hated the thought of the past; there was nothing that called out his love and fellowship toward the strangers he had come amongst; and the future was all dark. p. 17 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/he-hated-the.md) > [N]o sort of duplicity can long flourish without the help of vocal falsehoods p. 71 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/n-o-sort-of-duplicity.md) > So soon as Squire Cass's standing dishes diminished in plenty and freshness, his guests had nothing to do but to walk a little higher up the village to Mr. Osgood's, at the Orchards, and they found hams and chines uncut, pork-pies with the scent of the fire in them, spun butter in all its freshness — everything, in fact, that appetites at leisure could desire, in perhaps greater perfection, though not in greater abundance, than at Squire Cass's. p. 24 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/so-soon-as-squire.md) > That big muscular frame of his held plenty of animal courage, but helped him to no decision when the dangers to be braved were such as could neither be knocked down nor throttled. p. 28 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/that-big-muscular.md) > "[T]here's allays two 'pinions; there's the 'pinion a man has of himsen, and there's the 'pinion other folks have on him. There'd be two 'pinions about a cracked bell, if the bell could hear itself." p. 48 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/t-heres-allays-two.md) > The yoke a man creates for himself by wrong-doing will breed hate in the kindliest nature; . . . p. 32 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/the-yoke-a-man.md) > Do we not wile away moments of inanity or fatigued waiting by repeating some trivial movement or sound, until the repetition has bred a want, which is incipient habit? p. 19 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/do-we-not.md) > The lapse of time during which a given event has not happened, is, in this logic of habit, constantly alleged as a reason why the event should never happen, even when the lapse of time is precisely the added condition which makes the event imminent. A man will tell you that he has worked in a mine for forty years unhurt by an accident as a reason why he should apprehend no danger, though the roof is beginning to sink . . . p. 41 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/the-lapse-of-time.md) > Instead of trying to still his fears he encouraged them, with that superstitious impression which clings to us all, that if we expect evil very strongly it is the less likely to come; . . . p. 63 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/instead-of-trying.md) > He seemed to weave, like the spider, from pure impulse, without reflection. Every man's work, pursued steadily, tends in this way to become an end in itself, and so to bridge over the loveless chasms of his life. p. 16 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/he-seemed-to-weave.md) > the rich ate and drank freely, accepting gout and apoplexy as things that ran mysteriously in respectable families . . . p. 23 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-eliot/silas-marner/the-rich-ate.md)