Go forward with joyful confidence.
George EliotRead
Her future, she thought, was likely to be worse than her past, for after her years of contented renunciation, she had slipped back into desire and longing; she found joyless days of distasteful occupation harder and harder; she found the image of the intense and varied life she yearned for, and despaired of, becoming more and more importunate.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the struggle between past contentment and present desire, emphasizing feelings of despair for a better future.
In this quote, George Eliot explores the tension between a past filled with contentment and a present that is overshadowed by desire and longing. The protagonist feels trapped in a cycle of dissatisfaction, as memories of an intense, fulfilling life haunt her, causing a deep sense of yearning and despair for a future that seems increasingly bleak in contrast to her past. This captures the essence of human struggle against the pull of unfulfilled desires and the weight of discontent.
Themes
DesireLongingDiscontentFuturePast
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about overcoming dissatisfaction in life.
More from George Eliot
All quotes →You 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 – 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
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