George Gissing Quotes (14 Quotes)

I know every book of mine by its smell, and I have but to put my nose between the pages to be reminded of all sorts of things.

Money is time. With money I buy for cheerful use the hours which otherwise would not in any sense be mine; nay, which would make me their miserable bondsman.

Literature nowadays is a trade. Putting aside men of genius, who may succeed by mere cosmic force, your successful man of letters is your skilful tradesman. He thinks first and foremost of the markets . . .

Persistent prophecy is a familiar way of assuring the event.

Flippancy, the most hopeless form of intellectual vice.

The first time I read an excellent work, it is to me just as if I gained a new friend; and when I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting of an old one.

It is the mind which creates the world around us, and even though we stand side by side in the same meadow, my eyes will never see what is beheld by yours, my heart will never stir to the emotions with which yours is touched.

It is because nations tend towards stupidity and baseness that mankind moves so slowly; it is because individuals have a capacity for better things that it moves at all.

For the man sound of body and serene of mind there is no such thing as bad weather; every day has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously.

Time is money says the proverb, but turn it around and you get a precious truth. Money is time.

Money is made at Christmas out of holly and mistletoe, but who save the vendors would greatly care if no green branch were procurable One symbol, indeed, has obscured all others--the minted round of metal. And one may safely say that, of all the ages since a coin first became the symbol of power, ours is that in which it yields to the majority of its possessors the poorest return in heart's contentment.

It is familiarity with life that makes time speed quickly. When every day is a step in the unknown, as for children, the days are long with gathering of experience . . .

That is one of the bitter curses of poverty; it leaves no right to be generous.

Have the courage of your desire.