George Gissing Quotes & Sayings

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. — George Gissing

No, no; women, old or young, should never have to think about money. — George Gissing

Perhaps it is while drinking tea that I most of all enjoy the sense of leisure. — George Gissing

Well, I wasn't going to abuse him. I was only going to ask: Is there any quality which distinguishes his work from that of twenty struggling writers one could name? Of course not. He's a clever, prolific man; so are they. But he began with money and friends; he came from Oxford into the thick of advertised people; his name was mentioned in print six times a week before he had written a dozen articles. This kind of thing will become the rule. Men won't succeed in literature that they may get into society, but will get into society that they may succeed in literature. — George Gissing

I don't advise. You mutn't give any weight to what I say, except in so far as your own judgment approves it. — George Gissing

To every man it is decreed: Thou shalt live alone. Happy they who imagine that they have escaped the common lot; happy, whilst they imagine it. — George Gissing

Persistent prophecy is a familiar way of assuring the event. — George Gissing

I hate and fear 'science' because of my conviction that, for long to come if not for ever, it will be the remorseless enemy of mankind. I see it destroying all simplicity and gentleness of life, all the beauty of the world; I see it restoring barbarism under a mask of civilization; I see it darkening men's minds and hardening their hearts. — George Gissing

Life is a huge farce, and the advantage of possessing a sense of humour is that it enables one to defy fate with mocking laughter. — George Gissing

Flippancy, the most hopeless form of intellectual vice. — George Gissing

How I envy those clerks who go by to their offices in the morning! There's the day's work cut out for them; no question of mood and feeling; they have just to work at something, and when the evening comes, they have earned their wages, and they are free to rest and enjoy themselves. What an insane thing it is to make literature one's only means of support! When the most trivial accident may at any time prove fatal to one's power of work for weeks or months. No, that is the unpardonable sin! To make a trade of an art! I am rightly served for attempting such a brutal folly. — George Gissing

I have the happiness of a passing moment, and what more can mortal ask? — George Gissing

I hate with a bitter hatred the names of lentils haricots - those pretentious cheats of the appetite, those tabulated humbugs, those certified aridites calling themselves human food! — George Gissing

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

It is our duty never to speak ill of others, you know; least of all when we know that to do so will be the cause of much pain and trouble. — George Gissing

To like Keats is a test of fitness for understanding poetry, just as to like Shakespeare is a test of general mental capacity. — George Gissing

People have got that ancient prejudice so firmly rooted in their heads that one mustn't write save at I the dictation of the Holy Spirit. I tell you, writing is a business. — George Gissing

Indolence had a great part in his temperament; a book, a sunny corner, and entire tranquillity, formed his ideal of supportable existence. — George Gissing

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. — George Gissing

And why should any man who writes, even if he writes things immortal, nurse anger at the world's neglect? Who asked him to publish? Who promised him a hearing? Who has broken faith with him? Your poem, your novel, who bargained with you for it? — George Gissing

The result will be something unutterably tedious. — George Gissing

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. — George Gissing

One of the shining moments of my day is that when, having returned a little weary from an afternoon walk, I exchange boots for slippers, out-of-doors coat for easy, familiar, shabby jacket, and, in my deep, soft-elbowed chair, await the tea-tray ... [H]ow delicious is the soft yet penetrating odour which floats into my study, with the appearance of the teapot! ... What a glow does it bring after a walk in chilly rain! — George Gissing

Nowhere is the English genius of domesticity more notably evident than in the festival of afternoon tea. The [ ... ] chink of cups and the saucers tunes the mind to happy repose. — George Gissing

The mind which renounces, once and for ever, a futile hope, has its compensation in ever-growing calm. — George Gissing

I wish girls fell down and died of hunger in the streets, instead of creeping to their garrets and the hospitals. I should like to see their dead bodies collected together in some open place for the crowd to stare at.'
Monica gazed at her with wide eyes.
'You mean, I suppose, that people would try to reform things.'
'Who knows? Perhaps they might only congratulate each other that a few of the superfluous females had been struck off. — George Gissing

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. — George Gissing

He liked to feel the soft little hand clasping his own fingers, so big and coarse in comparison, and happily so strong. For in the child's weakness he felt an infinite pathos; a being so entirely helpless, so utterly dependent upon others' love, standing there amid a world of cruelties, smiling and trustful. — George Gissing

But just understand the difference between a man like Reardon and a man like me. He is the old type of unpractical artist; I am the literary man of 1882. He won't make concessions, or rather, he can't make them; he can't supply the market. I
well, you may say that at present, I do nothing; but that's a great mistake, I am learning my business. 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; when one kind of goods begins to go off slackly, he is ready with something new and appetising. He knows perfectly all the possible sources of income. Whatever he has to sell, he'll get payment for it from all sorts of various quarters; none of your unpractical selling for a lump sum to a middleman who will make six distinct profits. — George Gissing

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. — George Gissing

For one thing, I know every book of mine by its scent. — George Gissing

Honest Winter, snow-clad, and with the frosted beard, I can welcome not uncordially; But that long deferment of the calendar's promise, that weeping gloom of March and April, that bitter blast outraging the honour of May how often has it robbed me of heart and hope? — George Gissing

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

Have the courage of your desire. — George Gissing

A womanly occupation means, practically, an occupation that a man disdains. — George Gissing

The misery of having no time to read a thousand glorious books. — George Gissing

There should be no such thing as a class of females vulgarized by the necessity of finding daily amusement. — George Gissing

exchanged looks, and laughed together. — George Gissing

I see. I imagined that he was cast out of all decent society".
"If society were really decent, he would have been — George Gissing

He inspired no distrust; his good nature seemed all-pervading; he had the air of one who lavishes disinterested counsel, and ever so little exalts himself with his facile exuberance of speech. The Whirlpool — George Gissing

Life, I fancy, would very often be insupportable, but for the luxury of self-compassion. — George Gissing

A pipe for the hour of work; a cigarette for the hour of conception; a cigar for the hour of vacuity. — George Gissing

Human creatures have a mervellous power of adapting themselves to necessity. — George Gissing

The earning of money should be a means to an end; for more than thirty years
I began to support myself at sixteen
I had to regard it as the end itself. — George Gissing

London is a huge shop, with a hotel on the upper storeys. — George Gissing

I am much better employed from every point of view, when I live solely for my own satisfaction, than when I begin to worry about the world. The world frightens me, and a frightened man is no good for anything. — George Gissing

The truths of life are not discovered by us. At moments unforeseen, some gracious influence descends upon the soul, touching it to an emotion which, we know not how, the mind transmutes into thought. — George Gissing

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 ... — George Gissing

- Amy said that would be an imprudent expense; but as soon as he had got a good price for a book. Will not the publishers be kind? If they knew what happiness lurked in embryo within their foolish cheque-books! — George Gissing

Literature nowadays is a trade ... the successful man of letters is your skilful tradesman. He thinks first and foremost of the markets. — George Gissing

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. — George Gissing

To be at other people's orders brings out all the bad in me. — George Gissing

Parks are but pavement disguised with a growth of grass. — George Gissing