Top 380 Elizabeth Gaskell Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 5 of 8

201. “The daily life into which people are born, and into which they are absorbed before they are well aware, forms chains which only one in a hundred has moral strength enough to despise, and to break when the right time comes – when an inward necessity for independent individual action arises, which is superior to all outward conventionalities.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

202. “Oh dear! how she could have loved him if he had but been different, with a difference which she felt, on reflection, to be one that went low – deep down.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

203. “Molly suddenly felt as if she could scarcely keep from crying – a minute ago he had been so near to her, and talking so pleasantly and confidentially; and now he almost seemed as if he had forgotten her existence.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

204. “She found Nicholas busily engaged in making a penny spin on the dresser, for the amusement of three little children, who were clinging to him in a fearless manner. He, as well as they, was smiling at a good long spin;.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

205. “A great matter calls her son with terms like deal, and love.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

206. “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

207. “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

208. “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

209. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

211. “I know we differ in our religious opinions; but don’t you give me credit for having some, though not the same as yours?”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

212. “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

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. “There’s iron, they say, in all our blood, And a grain or two perhaps is good; But his, he makes me harshly feel, Has got a little too much of steel.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

215. “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

216. “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

217. “Do you remember, love?”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

218. “I don’t know – I suppose because, on the very face on it, I see two classes dependent on each other in every possible way, yet each evidently regarding the interests of the other as opposed to their own.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

221. “I shall not be at home until the afternoon, my dear! But I hope you will not find it dull. I don’t think you will, for you are something like me, my love – never less alone than when alone, as one of the great authors has justly expressed it.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

222. “It was towards the end of February, in that year, and a bitter black frost had lasted for many weeks. The keen east wind had long since swept the streets clean, though in a gusty day the dust would rise like pounded ice, and make people’s faces quite smart with the cold force with which it blew against them. Houses, sky, people, and everything looked as if a gigantic brush had washed them all over with a dark shade of Indian ink.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

226. “We are the trees whom shaking fastens more. – George Herbert.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

227. “That doubt and trouble, fear and pain, And anguish, all, are shadows vain, That death itself shall not remain; That weary deserts we may tread, A dreary labyrinth may thread, Thro’ dark ways underground be led; Yet, if we will one Guide obey, The dreariest path, the darkest way Shall issue out in heavenly day; And we, on divers shores now cast, Shall meet, our perilous voyage past, All in our Father’s house at last!’ R. C. TRENCH.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

228. “Ah! relevons-nous, et quittons-la pour jamais, reclamons la misericorde de Dieu, et esperons en elle qu’elle nous assistera pour desormais estre plus fermes; et remettons-nous au chemin de l’humilite. Courage, soyons meshuy sur nos gardes, Dieu nous aydera.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

229. “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

230. “Bear up, brave heart!”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

231. “They could not understand how her heart was aching all the time, with a heavy pressure that no sighs could lift off or relieve, and how constant exertion for her perceptive faculties was the only way to keep herself from crying out with pain.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

232. “The face, often so weary with pain, so restless with troublous thoughts, had now the faint soft smile of eternal rest upon it. The slow tears gathered into Margaret’s eyes, but a deep calm entered into her soul. And that was death! It looked more peaceful than life. All beautiful scriptures came into her mind. ‘They rest from their labours.’ ‘The weary are at rest.’ ‘He giveth His beloved sleep.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

233. “They did not speak much more, but thridded their way through many a bosky dell, whose soft green influence could not charm away the shock and the pain in Margaret’s heart, caused by the recital of such cruelty; a recital too, the manner of which betrayed such utter want of imagination, and therefore of any sympathy with the suffering animal.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

235. “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

236. “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

237. “Every talent, every feeling, every acquirement; nay, even every tendency towards virtue was used up as materials for fireworks; the hidden, sacred fire, exhausted itself in sparkle and crackle.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

238. “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

239. “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

240. “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

241. “Fancy is three parts o’ love.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

242. “There she stood, frightened, yet brave, not letting go her hold on what she meant to do, even when things seemed to be most against her.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

243. “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

244. “Beginning with scarlet fever, I’m afraid. It’s well you left when you did, Molly. You’ve never had it. We must stop up all intercourse with the Hall for a time. If there’s one illness I dread, it is this.′ ‘But you go and come back to us, papa.’ ‘Yes. But I always take plenty of precautions. However, no need to talk about risks that lie in the way of one’s duty. It is unnecessary risks that we must avoid.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

245. “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

246. “What, I sometimes ask, could I do without them? I have recourse to them as to friends; they shorten and cheer many an hour that would be too long and too desolate otherwise; even when my tired sight will not permit me to continue reading, it is pleasant to see them on the shelf, or on the table.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

247. “Upon my word, you don’t think small beer of yourself! Hamper.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

248. “We hate to have laws made for us at a distance. We wish people would allow us to right ourselves, instead of continually meddling, with their imperfect legislation. We stand up for self-government, and oppose centralization.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

250. “She listened to her story and her fears till the sobs were hushed; and the moon fell through the casement on the white closed eyelids of one, who still sighed in her sleep.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell