Go forward with joyful confidence.
George EliotRead
Explain! Tell a man to explain how he dropped into hell! Explain my preference! I never had a PREFERENCE for her, any more than I have a preference for breathing. No other woman exists by the side of her. I would rather touch her hand if it were dead, than I would touch any other woman's living.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses an intense, singular love for one person above all others.
In this quote, George Eliot conveys the depth of her devotion, suggesting that her affection for this particular woman is so profound that it transcends any lesser connection to others. The imagery illustrates how the speaker doesn't merely prefer this woman; her love is essential, akin to the necessity of breathing, highlighting the unique and irreplaceable bond she shares with her.
Themes
LoveDevotionPreferenceAffectionRelationship
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a wedding speech to illustrate deep and unwavering love.
More from George Eliot
All quotes βYou must love your work, and not be always looking over the edge of it, wanting your play to begin. And the other is, you must not be ashamed of your work, and think it would be more honorable to you to be doing something else. You must have a pride in your own work and in learning to do it well.
George EliotRead
She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel β that she had to endure this wide hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth.
George EliotRead
Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music.
George EliotRead
I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.
George EliotRead
Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them: they can be injured by us, they can be wounded; they know all our penitence, all our aching sense that their place is empty, all the kisses we bestow on the smallest relic of their presence.
George EliotRead
Similar quotes
I love, but I am not entirely sure how to be loved: how to be seen and known for the utterly flawed woman I am. It demands surrender. It demands acknowledging that I am not perfect, but perhaps I deserve affection anyway.
Roxane GayRead
Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.
Soren KierkegaardRead
Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.
Oscar WildeRead
You have been mine before - How long ago I may not know: But just when at that swallow's soar, your neck turned so, Some veil did fall, - I knew it all of yore.
Dante Gabriel RossettiRead
God is love, generosity and forgiveness; if we believe in this, we will never allow our weaknesses to paralyse us.
Paulo CoelhoRead
It was in the spring that Josephine and I had first loved each other, or, at least, had first come into the full knowledge that we loved. I think that we must have loved each other all our lives, and that each succeeding spring was a word in the revelation of that love, not to be understood until, in the fullness of time, the whole sentence was written out in that most beautiful of all beautiful springs.
Lucy Maud MontgomeryRead