Top 380 Elizabeth Gaskell Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “With a bound, the sun of a molten fiery red cam above the horizon, and immediately thousands of little birds sang out for joy, and a soft chorus of mysterious, glad murmurs came forth from the earth; the low whispering wind left its hiding-place among the clefts and hollows of the hills, and wandered among the rustling herbs and trees, waking the flower-buds to the life of another day.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

102. “But when she got into her own, she locked the door, and sate down to cry unwonted tears.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

103. “I wanted to see the place where Margaret grew to what she is, even at the worst time of all, when I had no hope of ever calling her mine...”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

104. “A solitary life cherishes mere fancies until they become manias.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

105. “Yet is was very difficult to separate her interpretation, and keep it distinct from his meaning.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

106. “The French girls would tell you, to believe that you were pretty would make you so.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

107. “He felt every day more and more certain that she, and she alone, could make him happy.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

108. “Aye, aye! good-natured, jolly, full of fun; there are a number of other names for the good qualities the devil leaves his children, as bait to catch gudgeons with. D’ye think folk could be led astray by one who was every way bad?”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

109. “It seems strange to think, that what gives us most hope for the future should be called Dolores, said Margaret.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

110. “A girl in love will do a good deal.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

111. “She handed him his cup of tea with the proud air of an unwilling slave...”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

112. “He could not – say rather, he would not – deny himself the chance of the pleasure of seeing Margaret. He had no end in this but the present gratification.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

113. “I had such a mother as few are blest with; a woman of strong power, and firm resolve.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

114. “But I’m clear about this, when God gives a blessing to be enjoyed, He gives it with a duty to be done; and the duty of the happy is to help the suffering to bear their woe.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

115. “Margaret found that the indifferent, careless conversations of one who, however kind, was not too warm and anxious a sympathizer, did her good.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

116. “As far as she could see, her life was ordained to be lonely, and she must subdue her nature to her life, and, if possible, bring the two into harmony. When she could employ herself in fiction, all was comparatively well. The characters were her companions in the quiet hours, which she spent utterly alone, unable often to stir out of doors for many days together.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

117. “When prayers were ended, and his Mother had wished him good-night with that long steady look of hers which conveyed no expression of the tenderness that was in her heart, but yet had all the intensity of a blessing.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

118. “I put it to the touch once, and I lost it all. Let her go – with her stony heart, and her beauty; – how set and terrible her look is now, for all her loveliness of feature! She is afraid I shall speak what will require some stern repression. Let her go. Beauty and heiress as she may be, she will find it hard to meet with a truer heart than mine. Let her go!”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

119. “Oh, don’t be so wise and stupid.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

120. “Our Lord Jesus was not above letting folk minister to Him, for he knew how happy it makes one to do aught for another. It’s the happiest work on earth.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

121. “Daniel was very like a child in all the parts of his character. He was strongly affected by whatever was present, and apt to forget the absent. He acted on impulse, and too often had reason to be sorry for it; but he hated his sorrow too much to let it teach him wisdom for the future.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

122. “Looking back upon the year’s accumulated heap of troubles, Margaret wondered how they had been borne. If she could have anticipated them, how she would have shrunk away and hid herself from the coming time! And yet day by day had, of itself, and by itself, been very endurable – small, keen, bright little spots of positive enjoyment having come sparkling into the very middle of sorrows.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

123. “Many a one is not well for a time; and with good advice gets better and stronger than ever.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

124. “She never called her son by any name but John; ‘love’ and ‘dear’, and such like terms, were reserved for Fanny.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

125. “But these factory people, who on earth wears cotton that can afford linen?”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

126. “It was a stinging pleasure to be in the room with her, and feel her presence.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

127. “He was lashing himself again into an impotent rage, painful to a son to witness.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

128. “Pray don’t go into similes, Margaret; you have led us off once already,′ said her father, smiling, yet uneasy at the thought that they were detaining Mr. Thornton against his will, which was a mistake; for he rather liked it, as long as Margaret would talk, although what she said only irritated him.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

129. “If they came sorrowing, and wanting sympathy in a complicated trouble like the present, then they would be felt as a shadow in all these houses of intimate acquaintances, not friends.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

130. “I am punished. Only let me hope.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

131. “It is part of His plan to send suffering to bring out a higher good; but surely it’s also part of His plan that as much of the burden of suffering as can be should be lightened by those whom it is His pleasure to make happy and content in their own circumstances.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

132. “Roger let go; they were now on firm ground, and he did not wish any watchers to think that he was exercising any constraint over his father; and this quiet obedience to his impatient commands did more to soothe the Squire than anything else could have effected just then.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

133. “Her mouth was wide; no rosebud that could only open just enough to let out a ‘yes’ and ‘no’, and ‘an’t please you, sir’.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

134. “Well, now, sir, I put it to yo’, being a parson, and having been in th’ preaching line, and having had to try and bring folk o’er to what yo’ thought was a right way o’ thinking – did yo’ begin by calling ‘em fools and such like, or didn’t yo’ rayther give ’em some kind words at first, to make ’em ready for to listen and be convinced, if they could;.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

135. “He had married a delicate fine London lady; it was one of those perplexing marriages of which one cannot understand the reasons.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

136. “Margaret liked this smile; it was the first thing she had admired in this new friend of her father’s; and the opposition of character, shown in all these details of appearance she had just been noticing, seemed to explain the attraction they evidently felt towards each other.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

137. “She did not answer. She could not tell what words to use. She was afraid of saying anything, lest the passion of anger, dislike, indignation – whatever it was that was boiling up in her breast – should find vent in cries and screams, or worse, in raging words that could never be forgotten. It was as if the piece of solid ground on which she stood had broken from the shore, and she was drifting out to the infinite sea alone.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

138. “There have been such strange unexpected changes in my life during these last two years, that I feel more than ever that it is not worth while to calculate too closely what I should do if any future event took place. I try to think only upon the present.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

139. “Don’t be afraid,” she said, coldly, “ as far as love may go she may be worthy of you. It must have taken a good deal to overcome her pride. Don’t be afraid, John.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

140. “It was one of Mrs. Hale’s fitful days, when everything was a difficulty and a hardship; and Mr Lennox’s appearance took this shape, although secretly she felt complimented by his thinking it worthwhile to call.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

141. “His laws once broken, His justice and the very nature of those laws bring the immutable retribution; but if we turn penitently to Him, He enables us to bear our punishment with a meek and docile heart, ’for His mercy endureth forever.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

142. “She stood by the tea-table in a light-coloured muslin gown, which had a good deal of pink about it. She looked as if she was not attending to the conversation, but solely busy with the tea-cups, among which her round ivory hands moved with pretty, noiseless, daintiness.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

143. “Similarity of opinion is not always – I think not often – needed for fullness and perfection of love.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

144. “Nothing like the act of eating for equalising men. Dying is nothing to it. The philosopher dies sententiously – the pharisee ostentatiously – the simple-hearted humbly – the poor idiot blindly, as the sparrow falls to the ground; the philosopher and idiot, publican and pharisee, all eat after the same fashion – given an equally good digestion.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

145. “God is just, and our lots are well portioned out by Him, although none, but He knows the bitterness of our souls.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

146. “He came up straight to her father, whose hands he took and wrung without a word – holding them in his for a minute or two, during which time his face, his eyes, his look, told of more sympathy than could be put into words.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

147. “He went along the crowded streets mechanically, winding in and out among the people, but never seeing them, – almost sick with longing for that one half-hour – that one brief space of time when she clung to him, and her heart beat against his – to come once again.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

148. “I say Gibson, we’re old friends, and you’re a fool if you take anything I say as an offense. Madam your wife and I didn’t hit it off the only time I ever saw her. I won’t say she was silly, but I think one of us was silly, and it wasn’t me!”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

149. “I declare I don’t know which of her three lovers she may not summon at the very last moment to act the part of bridegroom. I’m determined to be surprised at nothing; and will give her away with a good grace to whoever comes.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

150. “Were all men equal to-night, some would get the start by rising an hour earlier to-morrow.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell