George Gissing Quotes

Pure literature seemed beyond his scope, yet he was constantly endeavouring to express himself.

Exquisite as an artistic product of Society, she affected the imagination not so much by her personal charm as through the perfume of luxury which breathed about her. Egremont, with his radical tendencies of thought, found himself marvelling as he regarded her; what a life was hers! Compare it with that of some little work-girl in Lambeth, such as he saw in the street — what spaces between those two worlds!

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

Lyddy,’ she added in a whisper, ‘it makes you so cruel to other people when you love anyone.

He had heard but one of Walter's lectures, yet that was enough to realise for him the kind of thing which henceforth he disliked and distrusted. Egremont, it seemed to him, had sought to make working men priggish and effeminate, whereas what they wanted was back-bone and consciousness of the bard facts of life.

It took a long time before I had taught myself how to move and speak like one of the class to which I belonged by right of intellect.

You have heard that Nancy wants to mix with the rag-tag and bobtail tomorrow night?’
‘I shall take care of her,’ Horace replied, starting from his reverie.
‘Doesn’t it seem to you rather a come-down for an educated young lady?’
‘Oh, there’ll be lots of them about.’
‘Will there? Then I can’t see much difference between them and the servant girls.

Marriage is a practical concern of mankind at large; Love is a personal experience of the very few.

If it became known that she had taken a step such as few women would have dared to take — deliberately setting an example of new liberty — her position in the eyes of all who knew her remained one of proud independence.

Un ideale spinto all'estremo non è poi tanto meglio dell'assenza di ideali.

The earning of money should be a means to an end; for more than thirty years — I began to support myself at sixteen — I had to regard it as the end itself.

The whirlpool![...] It's got hold of me, and I'm going down, old man — and it looks black as hell.

Both of them are obvious dwellers in the valley of the shadow of books.

It is the duty of every man, who has sufficient means, to maintain a wife. The life of unmarried women is a wretched one; every man who is able ought to save one of them from that fate.

Part I: Miss. Lord CHAPTER 1 At eight o'clock on Sunday morning, Arthur Peachey unlocked his front door, and quietly went forth. He had not ventured to ask that early breakfast should be prepared for him. Enough that he was leaving home for a summer holiday — the first he had allowed himself since his marriage three years ago.