One couldn't carry on life comfortably without a little blindness to the fact that everything had been said better than we can put it ourselves.
 George Eliot, Daniel Deronda (1876). copy citation

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Author George Eliot
Source Daniel Deronda
Topic blindness life
Date 1876
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/7469/pg7469-images.html

Context

“That's all very fine, but in practical life nobody does give you the cue for pages of Greek. In fact, it's a nicety of conversation which I would have you attend to—much quotation of any sort, even in English is bad. It tends to choke ordinary remark. One couldn't carry on life comfortably without a little blindness to the fact that everything had been said better than we can put it ourselves. But talking of Dons, I have seen Dons make a capital figure in society; and occasionally he can shoot you down a cart-load of learning in the right place, which will tell in politics. Such men are wanted;” source