How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
And so it remains to all time, a lasting record of human needs and human consolations, the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced [...] but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. (4.3.41)
Though Eliot is writing about the Thomas à Kempis book that Maggie discovers, this passage speaks to the novels views on the past and history as a whole. Essentially people are connected across time here and voices from the past can reach out and actively influence the present. This may be why Maggie so strongly refuses to abandon her past – it is still speaking to her, in a sense.
Quote #8
"Perhaps not," said Maggie, simply, "but then, you know, the first thing I ever remember in my life is standing with Tom by the side of the Floss while he held my hand - everything before that is dark to me." (5.1.54)
Maggie places a huge amount of emphasis on the past and tends to weight past events over present ones. This memory reveals the fact that Tom and the river are her very first memories, which in Maggie’s view gives them precedence over everything else in her life. If everything before this memory is "dark," then everything after it is somehow less.
Quote #9
And even after the first week Maggie began to be less haunted by her sad memories and anticipations. Life was certainly very pleasant just now. (6.6.3)
Occasionally Maggie does let herself be swept away in the present, as when she visits Lucy and begins enjoying high society life and the company of Stephen.