Faculty Quote by George Eliot
“It is not ignoble to feel that the fuller life which a sad experience has brought us is worth our personal share of pain. The growth of higher feeling within us is like the growth of faculty, bringing with it a sense of added strength. We can no more wish to return to a narrower sympathy than painters or musicians can wish to return to their cruder manner, or philosophers to their less complete formulas.”
About This Quote
Source Novel: Middlemarch by George Eliot, 1871
Suffering can deepen empathy and emotional capacity, enriching our humanity.
In simple terms: Pain can expand our emotional depth.
Key Takeaway
Allow hardship to foster growth.
Themes
suffering
empathy
growth
strength
artistic sensibility
Mood
reflective
empathetic
Type
philosophical
inspirational
When to use this quote
- grief counseling
- creative expression
- teaching
- leadership development
Key Concepts
philosophy
psychology
literature
Questions to Reflect On
- How does personal pain enhance empathy?
- When does pain become detrimental?
A Different Perspective
Excessive pain may overwhelm growth.
![“[W]e must learn to accommodate ourselves to the discovery that some of those cunningly-fashioned instruments called human souls have only a very limited range of music, and will not vibrate in the least under a touch that fills others with tremulous rapture or quivering agony.” quote by George Eliot](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/9be/george-eliot-84_agony_w-e-must-learn-to-accommodate-ourselves_12409.jpg)
![“...There is no study in the world which brings into more harmonious action all the faculties of the mind than [mathematics], ... or, like this, seems to raise them, by successive steps of initiation, to higher and higher states of conscious intellectual being…” quote by James Joseph Sylvester](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/bc5/james-joseph-sylvester-23602_action_there-is-no-study-in-the-world-which-bri_23809.jpg)
