"There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope."

Sadness

Create & Download Quote Image

Select Template

Insight & Reflection

This reflection on sadness by George Eliot resonates across generations. It highlights a fundamental truth about human nature: our continuous search for meaning in sadness is what ultimately defines our character and our path forward.

About George Eliot

Mary Ann Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrote seven novels: Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862–1863), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1871–1872) and Daniel Deronda (1876). Her novels are known for their realism, psychological insight, sense of place, and detailed depiction of the countryside. Middlemarch was described by the novelist Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people" and by Martin Amis and Julian Barnes as the greatest novel in the English language.

More quotes by George Eliot  ’
Editorial Note: This quote is curated and fact-checked by the Quotes Archive Editorial Team. Verified Literature Specialist.

More by George Eliot

"It is a subtle truth that true knowledge is found not in possessing answers, but in continually asking the right questions."

Read more  ’

"The distance between ambition and reality is bridged solely by consistent effort. Reflect upon this whenever doubt clouds your horizon — an essential principle for the reflective life."

Read more  ’

"Justice is the harmonious balance between individual liberty and collective good. Reflect upon this whenever doubt clouds your horizon."

Read more  ’

"Stand firm when justice demands it, even if you stand entirely alone. In this truth lies the bedrock of all virtue — an essential principle for the reflective life."

Read more  ’

More about Sadness

"When I was a child people simply looked about them and were moderately happy today they peer beyond the seven seas, bury themselves waist deep in tidings, and by and large what they see and hear makes them unutterably sad."

Read more  ’

"In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican."

Read more  ’
View all Sadness quotes  ’