George Moore (novelist) quotes

George Moore was an Irish novelist and short-story writer, recognized for his pioneering role in the development of modernist literature. His works explored themes of realism, psychological complexity, and the changing social landscape of his time. He influenced later writers with his innovative narrative style and openness to controversial subjects. Here are 36 of his quotes:

The wrong way always seems the more reasonable. (George Moore (novelist))
A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it. View quote
George Moore (novelist)
Reality can destroy the dream; why shouldn't the dream destroy reality? View quote
George Moore (novelist)
The difficulty in life is the choice. View quote
George Moore (novelist)
The mind petrifies if a circle be drawn around it, and it can hardly be denied that dogma draws a circle round the mind. View quote
George Moore (novelist)
A great artist is always before his time or behind it. View quote
George Moore (novelist)
After all there is but one race - humanity. View quote
George Moore (novelist)
We humans are more complicated than animals, and we love through the imagination. View quote
George Moore (novelist)
Self is man's main business; all outside of self is uncertain, all comes from self, all returns to self. View quote
George Moore (novelist)
Art must be parochial in the beginning to be cosmopolitan in the end. View quote
George Moore (novelist)
The lot of critics is to be remembered by what they failed to understand. (George Moore (novelist))
Acting is therefore the lowest of the arts, if it is an art at all. View quote
George Moore (novelist)
The public will accept a masterpiece, but it will not accept an attempt to write a masterpiece. View quote
George Moore (novelist)
I have always noticed that when a fellow wants to finish a play, the only way to do it is to go away to the country and leave no address. View quote
George Moore (novelist)
Faith goes out of the window when beauty comes in at the door. View quote
George Moore (novelist)
Terrible is the day when each sees his soul naked, stripped of all veil; that dear soul which he cannot change or discard, and which is so irreparably his. View quote
George Moore (novelist)
But if you want to be a painter you must go to France - France is the only school of Art. View quote
George Moore (novelist)
It does not matter how badly you paint so long as you don't paint badly like other people. View quote
George Moore (novelist)
The world is dying of machinery; that is the great disease, that is the plague that will sweep away and destroy civilization; man will have to rise against it sooner or later. View quote
George Moore (novelist)
Love - but not marriage. Marriage means a four-post bed and papa and mamma between eleven and twelve. Love is aspiration: transparencies, colour, light, a sense of the unreal. But a wife - you know all about her - who her father was, who her mother was, what she thinks of you and her opinion of the neighbours over the way. Where, then, is the dream? View quote
George Moore (novelist)
Humanity is a pigsty, where lions, hypocrites, and the obscene in spirit congregate. (George Moore (novelist))
All reformers are bachelors. View quote
George Moore (novelist)
It would appear that practical morality consists in making the meeting of men and women as casual as that of animals. View quote
George Moore (novelist)
I am filled with pride when I think of the noble and exalted world that must have existed before Christian doctrine caused men to look upon women with suspicion and bade them to think of angels instead. View quote
George Moore (novelist)
One must be in London to see the spring. View quote
George Moore (novelist)