Top 380 Elizabeth Gaskell Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “Some wishes crossed my mind and dimly cheered it, And one or two poor melancholy pleasures, Each in the pale unwarming light of hope, Silvering its flimsy wing, flew silent by – Moths in the moonbeam!′ COLERIDGE.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

202. “In short, Miss Hale, it is very evident that your informant found a pretty ready listener to all the slander he chose to utter against the masters,′ said Mr. Thornton, in an offended tone.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

203. “Only half of Roger’s success was owing to his mental powers; the other half was owing to his perfect health, which enabled him to work harder and more continuously than most men without suffering. He said that in all his experience he had never known any one with an equal capacity for mental labour; and that he could come again with a fresh appetite to his studies after shorter intervals of rest than most.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

204. “She must just submit, like many another, to be misunderstood;.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

205. “Never mind what she was; look at what she is!”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

206. “My precept is, ‘Do something, my sister, do good if you can; but, at any rate, do something.’” “Not excluding mischief,” said Margaret, smiling faintly through her tears. “By no means. What I do exclude is the remorse afterwards.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

207. “Do you remember, love?”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

208. “A more proud, disagreeable girl I never saw. Even her great beauty is blotted out of one’s memory by her scornful ways.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

209. “Where are the sounds that swam along The buoyant air when I was young? The last vibration now is o’er, And they who listened are no more; Ah! let me close my eyes and dream. – W. S. Landor.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

210. “So much was understood through eyes that could not be put into words.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

211. “Thou’d best not put that nonsense i’ the girl’s head I can tell thee; I’d rather see her earning her bread by the sweat of brow, as the Bible tells her she should do, ay, though she never got butter to her bread, than be like a do-nothing lady, worrying shopmen all morning, and screeching at her pianny all afternoon, and going to bed without having done a good turn to any one of God’s creatures but herself.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

212. “Set a beggar on horseback, and he’ll ride to the devil,“ –.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

213. “I remember Miss Bronte once telling me that it was a saying round about Haworth, “Keep a stone in thy pocket seven year; turn it, and keep it seven year longer, that it may be ever ready to thine hand when thine enemy draws near.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

214. “Never had any one more than Cynthia the power spoken of by Goldsmith when he wrote, – He threw off his friends like a huntsman his pack, For he knew when he liked he could whistle them back.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

215. “Unos instantes pueden cambiar nuestra forma de ser para toda la vida y.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

216. “All beautiful scriptures came into her mind. ‘They rest from their labours.’ ‘The weary are at rest.’ ‘He giveth His beloved sleep.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

217. “The loss of what we possess nearest and dearest to us in this world, produces an effect upon the character we search out what we have yet left that can support, and, when found, we cling to it with a hold of new–strung tenacity.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

218. “I don’t think I ever saw her out of temper; but then I’m not sure if she takes things keenly to heart, and a certain obtuseness of feeling goes a great way towards a character for good temper, I’ve observed.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

219. “I would do my best,′ said Margaret rather pale. ‘I do not know whether I am brave or not till I am tried; but I am afraid I should be a coward.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

220. “Man of action as he was, busy in the world’s great battle, there was a deeper religion binding him to God in his heart, in spite of his strong wilfulness, through all his mistakes, than Mr. Hale had ever dreamed.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

221. “As she realised what might have been, she grew to be thankful for what was. They were at the lowest now; they could not be worse.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

222. “And she went slowly and majestically out of the room. But when she got into her own, she locked the door, and sate down to cry unwonted tears.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

223. “Fancy is three parts o’ love.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

224. “You must never trifle with the love of an honest man. You don’t know what pain you may give.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

225. “He shrank from hearing Margaret’s very name mentioned; he, while he blamed her – while he was jealous of her – while he renounced her – he loved her sorely, in spite of himself. He dreamt of her; he dreamt she came dancing towards him with outspread arms, and with a lightness and gaiety which made him loathe her, even while it allured him.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

226. “It is as well: a promise given is a fetter to the giver. But a promise is not given when it has not been received.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

227. “Come what will, I cannot, when I write, think always of myself and of what is elegant and charming in femininity; it is not on those terms, or with such ideas, I ever took pen in hand: and if it is only on such terms my writing will be tolerated, I shall pass away from the public and trouble it no more. Out of obscurity I came, to obscurity I can easily return.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

228. “But I belong to Teutonic blood; it is little mingled in this part of England to what it is in others; we retain much of their language; we retain more of their spirit; we do not look upon life as a time for enjoyment, but as a time for action and exertion. Our glory and our beauty arise out of our inward strength, which makes us victorious over material resistance, and over greater difficulties still.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

229. “There are blasphemous actions as well as blasphemous words: all unloving, cruel deeds, are acted blasphemy.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

230. “Sometimes I used to hear a farmer speaking sharp and loud to his servants; but it was so far away that it only reminded me pleasantly that other people were hard at work in some distant place, while I just sat on the heather and did nothing.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

231. “Miserably disturbed!′ that is not strong enough. He was haunted by the remembrance of the handsome young man, with whom she stood in an attitude of such familiar confidence; and the remembrance shot through him like an agony, till it made him clench his hands tight in order to subdue the pain.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

232. “Only remember, Miss Phoebe, it’s you and I against the world, in defence of a distressed damsel.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

233. “I have been so curt, so abrupt, so abominably dull, that I’ll answer for it he thinks me worthy to be a man.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

234. “It is well for us that we live at the present time, when everybody is logical and consistent.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

235. “When we are heavy-laden in our hearts, it falls in better with our humor to reveal our case in our own way and our own time.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

236. “I grieve to say that I possess no portrait of either of my sisters.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

237. “I’m not a fool; and if I was, folk ought to ha’ taught me how to be wise after their fashion. I could mappen ha’ learnt, if any one had tried to teach me.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

238. “It was rather dull for Margaret after dinner. She was glad when the gentlemen came, not merely because she caught her father’s eye to brighten her sleepiness up; but because she could listen to something larger and grander than the petty interests which the ladies had been talking about.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

239. “He had not loved her without gaining that instinctive knowledge of what capabilities were in her.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

240. “Thus every hour in its circle brought a duty to be fulfilled; but duties fulfilled are as pleasures to the memory, and little Maggie always thought those early childish days most happy, and remembered them only as filled with careless contentment. -Chapter 1.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

241. “Very well,′ said Roger. ‘Tell them both as strongly as you can how I regret your prohibition. I see I must submit. But if I don’t come back, I’ll haunt you for having been so cruel.’ ‘Come, I like that. Give me a wise man of science in love! No one beats him in folly. Good-by.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

242. “CHAPTER 1 “Haste to the Wedding” “Wooed and married and a’.” “Edith!” said Margaret, gently, “Edith!” But, as Margaret half suspected, Edith had fallen asleep. She lay curled up on the sofa in the back drawing-room in Harley.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

243. “It was all my money; it was not my all,” replied Mr Benson.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

244. “He might despise her, but the woman whom he had once loved should be kept from shame; and.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

245. “Much of this nervous dread of encountering strangers I ascribed to the idea of her personal ugliness, which had been strongly impressed upon her imagination early in life, and which she exaggerated to herself in a remarkable manner. “I notice,” said she, “that after a stranger has once looked at my face, he is careful not to let his eyes wander to that part of the room again!” A more untrue idea never entered into any one’s head.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

246. “I read for the same reason that I ate or drank; because it was a real craving of nature. I wrote on the same principle as I spoke – out of the impulse and feelings of the mind; nor could I help it, for what came, came out, and there was the end of it. For as to self–conceit, that could not receive food from flattery, since to this hour, not half a dozen people in the world know that I have ever penned a line.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

247. “She had never before ventured into the world, and did not know how common and universal is the custom of picking to pieces those with whom we have just been associating; and so it pained her.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

248. “Give me a wise man of science in love! No one beats him in folly.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

249. “A man is to me a higher and a completer being than a gentleman.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

250. “Mrs. Shaw had as strong wishes as most people, but she never liked to do anything from the open and acknowledged motive of her own good will and pleasure; she preferred being compelled to gratify herself by some other person’s command or desire. She really did persuade herself that she was submitting to some hard external necessity; and thus she was able to moan and complain in her soft manner, all the time she was in reality doing just what she liked.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell