George Gissing Quotes

Egremont’s an amateur, a dilettante. In many ways he’s worth a hundred of Dalmaine, but Dalmaine will benefit the world, and it’s well if Egremont doesn’t do harm.

What is his line?’
‘Ah, that’s the question! Very likely he hasn’t one at all. It seems to me there’s a good many young fellows in that case nowadays. They have education, they have money, and they don’t know what the deuce to do with either one or the other. They’re a cut above you, Mr. Jack; it isn’t enough for them to live and enjoy themselves. So they get it into their heads that they’re called upon to reform the world — a nice handy little job, that’ll keep them going. The girls, I notice, are beginning to have the same craze. I shouldn’t wonder if Paula gets an idea that she’ll be a hospital-nurse, or go district-visiting in Bethnal Green.

Time is money — says the vulgarest saw known to any age or people. Turn it round about, and you get a precious truth — money is time. [...] What are we doing all our lives but purchasing, or trying to purchase, time? And most of us, having grasped it with one hand, throw it away with the other.

He pronounced his Latin in the new-old way, with Continental vowels. The effect of this on an Englishman's lips is always more or less pedantic, and in his case it was intolerable.

Genuine respect for law is the result of possessing something which the law exerts itself to guard. Should it happen that you possess nothing, and that your education in metaphysics has been grievously neglected, the strong probability is that your mind will reduce the principle of society to its naked formula: Get, by whatever means, so long as with impunity.

Walker's a fool and Quarmby's an ass,' remarked her father.

"What a shame it is," quoth Dr. Derwent, "that an honest man who facilitates murder on so great a scale should be kept waiting for his reward!"

In this humor [bantering/flirtatious] she [Rhoda Nunn] seemed more than ever a challenge to his manhood. She was armed at all points. She feared nothing that he might say. No flush of apprehension; no nervous tremor; no weak self-consciousness. Yet he saw her as a woman, and desirable.

This was his way of viewing marriage; it was on the woman's side a point of ambition, a gratification of vanity; on the man a dignified condescension.

I seem anything but lovable. I don't underrate my powers — rather the opposite, no doubt; but what I always seem to lack is the gift of pleasing — moral grace. My strongest emotions seem to be absorbed in revolt; for once that I feel tenderly, I have a hundred fierce, resentful, tempestuous moods. To be suave and smiling in common intercourse costs me an effort.

They spoke a peculiar tongue, the product of sham education and mock refinement grafted upon a stock of robust vulgarity.

One doesn’t like to do brutal things if one can avoid them, you know.

Only English folk know what is meant by gravy; consequently, the English alone are competent to speak on the question of sauce.

La vita è come la prendi: tutta malinconica, o moderatamente luminosa.

Don’t laugh! Don’t any of you laugh; for as sure as I live it was an angel stood in the room and spoke to me. There was a light such as none of you ever saw, and the angel stood in the midst of it. And he said to me: “Listen, whilst I reveal to you the truth, that you may know where you are and what you are; and this is done for a great purpose.” And I fell down on my knees; but never a word could I have spoken. Then the angel said: “You are passing through a state of punishment. You, and all the poor among whom you live; all those who are in suffering of body and darkness of mind, were once rich people, with every blessing the world can bestow, with every opportunity of happiness in yourselves and of making others happy. Because you made an ill use of your wealth, because you were selfish and hard-hearted and oppressive and sinful in every kind of indulgence — therefore after death you received the reward of wickedness. This life you are now leading is that of the damned; this place to which you are confined is Hell! There is no escape for you. From poor you shall become poorer; the older you grow the lower shall you sink in want and misery; at the end there is waiting for you, one and all, a death in abandonment and despair. This is Hell — Hell — Hell!