Go forward with joyful confidence.
George EliotRead
Having once embarked on your marital voyage, it is impossible not to be aware that you make no way and the sea is not within sight; that in fact, you are exploring an enclosed basin.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Marriage can feel stagnant and isolating at times, as if you are adrift in a closed off world.
In this quote, George Eliot reflects on the nature of marriage as a journey that can often feel aimless and enclosed. Once individuals commit to this voyage of partnership, they may find themselves in a situation where their progress is unclear and the broader horizons of life are not visible, highlighting the challenges of navigating intimacy and connection within a confined relationship dynamic.
Themes
MarriageRelationshipsVoyageExplorationCommitment
In practice
Example use cases
During a wedding speech, a person might share this quote to express the challenges and adventures of marital life.
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 get so sick and tired of hearing people gripe about what their parents did to them. You know what your parents did to you? The best thing they could do. The best thing they knew how, the only thing in many cases that they knew how. Nobody has set out maliciously to hurt their child, unless they were psychotic.
Leo BuscagliaRead
Young people want you to be real with them.
Magic JohnsonRead
[For constructive conflict,] we have to resist the neurobiological drive which means that we really prefer people mostly like ourselves.
Margaret HeffernanRead
I kind of cheer the presence of any gay characters at all - I think the more we can saturate television with any gay character or lesbian character or transgender character, I think that's a really great thing. We're kind of getting past the fact that they're the punchline or that they're the novelty.
Jesse Tyler FergusonRead
Letter writing is the only device combining solitude with good company.
Lord ByronRead
We're hardwired for connection. There's no arguing with the bioscience. But we can want it so badly we're trying to hot-wire it.
Brene BrownRead