George Henry Lewes

The only cure for grief is action.

George Henry Lewes (1817-04-18 – 1878-11-30) was an English philosopher, biographer, novelist, and literary and dramatic critic. He was also George Eliot's partner.

[edit] Sourced

The moral nature of man is more sacred in my eyes than his intellectual nature. I know they cannot be divorced — that without intelligence we should be Brutes — but it is the tendency of our gaping, wondering dispositions to give pre-eminence to those faculties which most astonish us. Strength of character seldom, if ever, astonishes; goodness, lovingness, and quiet self-sacrifice, are worth all the talents in the world.
- Rose, Blanche, and Violet (London: Smith, Elder, 1848) vol. 1, pp. viii-ix

Instead, therefore, of saying that Man is the creature of Circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that Man is the architect of Circumstance. It is Character which builds an existence out of Circumstance. Our strength is measured by our plastic power. From the same materials one man builds palaces, another hovels, one warehouses, another villas.
- The Life and Works of Goethe (1855; repr. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1856) vol. 1, p. 30
- Often misattributed to Thomas Carlyle.

Murder, like talent, seems occasionally to run in families.
- The Physiology of Common Life (1859-60; repr. New York: D. Appleton, 1867) vol. 2, p. 322

We must never assume that which is incapable of proof.
- The Physiology of Common Life (1859-60; repr. New York: D. Appleton, 1867) vol. 2, p. 349

No man ever made a discovery (he may have stumbled on one) without the exercise of as much imagination as, employed in another direction and in alliance with other faculties, would have gone to the creation of a poem.
- "The Principles of Success in Literature", in The Fortnightly Review, vol. 1 (1865) p. 573

It is not by his faults, but by his excellences, that we measure a great man.
- On Actors and the Art of Acting (Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1875) p. 13

Shakespeare is a good raft whereon to float securely down the stream of time; fasten yourself to that and your immortality is safe.
- On Actors and the Art of Acting (Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1875) p. 60

Science is the systematic classification of experience.
- The Physical Basis of Mind (1877; repr. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1891) p. 4

Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed.
- Ch. 2

A man may be buoyed up by the efflation of his wild desires to brave any imaginable peril; but he cannot calmly see one he loves braving the same peril; simply because he cannot feel within turn that which prompts another. He sees the danger, and feels not the power that is to overcome it.
- Ch. 2

To some men popularity is always suspicious. Enjoying none themselves, they are prone to suspect the validity of those attainments which command it.
- Ch. 3

Quotations are cited from the 1st edition (London: Trübner, 1874-5).

The great desire of this age is for a Doctrine which may serve to condense our knowledge, guide our researches, and shape our lives, so that Conduct may really be the consequence of Belief.
- Vol. 1, p. 2

No deeply-rooted tendency was ever extirpated by adverse argument. Not having originally been founded on argument, it cannot be destroyed by logic.
- Vol. 1, p. 7

Whatever lies beyond the limits of experience, and claims another origin than that of induction and deduction from established data, is illegitimate.
- Vol. 1, p. 17

Among the many strange servilities mistaken for pieties, one of the least lovely is that which hopes to flatter God by despising the world, and vilifying human nature.
- Vol. 1, p. 23

The history of the race is but that of the individual "writ large".
- Vol. 2, p. 135

Remember that every drop that falls, bears into the bosom of the earth a quality of beautiful fertility.
- G. P. R. James Henry Masterton (1832; repr. London: Richard Bentley, 1837) p. 297

Wikipedia has an article about:

George Henry Lewes