Silas Marner Quotes

Quote 1: "It came to pass that those scattered linen-weavers - emigrants from the town into the country - were to the last regarded as aliens by their rustic neighbours, and usually contracted the eccentric habits which belong to a state of loneliness" Chapter 1, pg. 10

Quote 2: His fainting fits were seen as messages from the Holy One: once he had fallen into an unconscious trance of some sort, which made it clear that he was a "brother selected for a peculiar discipline" Chapter 1, pg. 15

Quote 3: When the church drawing lots declared Silas Marner guilty, Silas told the church that William had set him up and declared that "there is no God that governs the earth righteously, but a God of lies, that bears witness against the innocent" Chapter 1, pg. 20

Quote 4: To Silas, "the Power in which he had vainly trusted among the streets and in the prayer-meetings, was very far away from this land in which he had taken refuge, where men lived in careless abundance, knowing and needing nothing of that trust, which, for him, had been turned to bitterness" Chapter 1, pg. 23

Quote 5: Dolly advises that "it's niver too late to turn over a new leaf, and if you've niver had no church, there's no telling the good it'll do you" Chapter 10, pg. 102

Quote 6: Silas is relieved when Dolly leaves: "her simple view of life and its comforts, by which she had tried to cheer him, was only like a report of unknown objects, which his imagination could not fashion" Chapter 10, pg. 105

Quote 7: Silas feels that the child is a "message come to him from that far-off life" Chapter 12, pg. 136

Quote 8: "I can't part with it, I can't let it go...It's come to me - I've a right to keep it", Silas says feelingly. Chapter 13, pg. 140

Quote 9: He knows that he should reveal that Molly was his wife and that he should claim the child and raise it, but he does not have the "moral courage enough to contemplate that active renunciation of Nancy as possible for him: he had only conscience and heart enough to make him for ever uneasy under the weakness that forbade the renunciation" Chapter 13, pg. 142

Quote 10: Silas feels an emotion so different from any other emotion he has ever felt when he holds the little girl; "thought and feeling were so confused within him, that if he had tried to give them utterance, he could have only said that the child was come instead of the gold - that the gold had turned into the child" Chapter 14, pg. 150

Quote 11: "The gold had kept his thoughts in an ever-repeated circle, leading to nothing beyond itself; but Eppie was an object compacted of changes and hopes that forced his thoughts onward, and carried them far away from their old eager pacing towards the same blank limit - carried them away to the new things that would come with the coming years" Chapter 14, pg. 153

Quote 12: "There was love between him and the child that blent them into one, and there was love between the child and the world" Chapter 14, pg. 159

Quote 13: "He would never forget it; he would see that it was well provided for. That was a father's duty" Chapter 15, pg. 162

Quote 14: Silas reflects on how his life has changed since Eppie entered his life: he is now viewed as an "exceptional person, whose claims of neighbourly help were not to be matched in Raveloe" Chapter 16, pg. 170

Quote 15: Silas agrees with Dolly; he declares that "there's good in this world - I've a feeling o' that now; and it makes a man feel as there's a good more nor he can see, in spite o' the trouble and the wickedness. That drawing o' the lots is dark; but the child was sent to me" Chapter 16, pg. 175

Quote 16: Silas says reflectively, "The money doesn't [take no hold on me]. I wonder if it ever could again - I doubt it might, if I lost you, Eppie. I might come to think I was forsaken again, and lose the feeling that God was good to me" Chapter 19, pg. 199

Quote 17: Silas says, "God gave her to me because you turned your back on her, and He looks upon her as mine; youv'e no right to her! When a man turns a blessing from his door, it falls to them as take it in" Chapter 19, pg. 203

Quote 18: Eppie declares that "we've been used to be happy together every day, and I can't think o' no happiness without him. And he says he'd nobody in the world till I was sent to him, and he'd have nothing when I was gone. And he's took care of me and loved me from the first, and I'll cleave to him as long as he lives, and nobody shall ever come between him and me" Chapter 19, pg. 206

Quote 19: Godfrey and Nancy agree that it would be useless to try to separate Eppie from Silas, for as Nancy says, "It wouldn't be right to want to force her to come to us against her will. We can't alter her bringing up and what's come of it" Chapter 20, pg. 209

Quote 20: Silas says, "Since the time the child was sent to me and I've come to love her as myself, I've had light enough to trusten by; and now she says she'll never leave me, I think I shall trusten till I die" Chapter 20, pg. 215