George Meredith: Quotes about life

George Meredith was British novelist and poet of the Victorian era. Explore interesting quotes on life.
George Meredith: 90 quotes5 likes

“Comedy is a game played to throw reflections upon social life, and it deals with human nature in the drawing-room of civilized men and women, where we have no dust of the struggling outer world, no mire, no violent crashes, to make the correctness of the representation convincing.”

George Meredith

Prelude. <br class="br"> The Egoist http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/egost11.txt (1879)

“In tragic life, God wot,
No villain need be! Passions spin the plot:
We are betrayed by what is false within.”

George Meredith

St. 43. <br class="br"> Modern Love http://www.ev90481.dial.pipex.com/Meredith/modern_love.htm (1862)

“Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul
When hot for certainties in this our life! -
In tragic hints here see what evermore
Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean's force,
Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse,
To throw that faint thin fine upon the shore!”

George Meredith

St. 50. <br class="br"> Modern Love http://www.ev90481.dial.pipex.com/Meredith/modern_love.htm (1862)

“What are we first? First, animals; and next
Intelligences at a leap; on whom
Pale lies the distant shadow of the tomb,
And all that draweth on the tomb for text.
Into which state comes Love, the crowning sun:
Beneath whose light the shadow loses form.
We are the lords of life, and life is warm.
Intelligence and instinct now are one.
But nature says: 'My children most they seem
When they least know me: therefore I decree
That they shall suffer.' Swift doth young Love flee,
And we stand wakened, shivering from our dream.
Then if we study Nature we are wise.”

George Meredith

St. 30. <br class="br"> Modern Love http://www.ev90481.dial.pipex.com/Meredith/modern_love.htm (1862)

“Behold the life at ease; it drifts,
The sharpened life commands its course.”

George Meredith

Hard Weather, l. 71 (1888).