Top 380 Elizabeth Gaskell Quotes (2026 Update)
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201. “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

202. “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

203. “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

204. “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

205. “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

206. “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

207. “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

208. “No, its the poor I tell you, and the poor only, as does such things for the poor. Don’t think to come over me with th’ old tale, that the rich knows nothing of the trials of the poor; I say, if they don’t know, they ought to know. We’re their slaves as long as we can work; we pile up their fortunes with the sweat of our brows, and yet we are to live as separate as if we were in two worlds... ” Chap. 1, p. 12.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

209. “Looking out of myself, and my own painful sense of change, the progress all around me is right and necessary. I must not think so much of how circumstances affect me myself, but how they affect others, if I wish to have a right judgment, or a hopeful trustful heart.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

210. “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

211. “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

212. “Do you remember, love?”

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

217. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

220. “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

221. “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

222. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

224. “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

225. “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

226. “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

227. “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

228. “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

229. “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

230. “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

231. “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

232. “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

233. “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

234. “But courage, little heart. We will turn back, and by God’s help we may find the lost path.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

235. “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

236. “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

237. “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

238. “Mrs. Gibson, it is true, was ready to go over the ground as many times as any one liked; but her words were always like ready-made clothes, and never fitted individual thoughts.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

239. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

241. “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

242. “I sometimes think there’s two sides to the commandment; and that we may say, ‘Let others do unto you, as you would do unto them,’ for pride often prevents our giving others a great deal of pleasure, in not letting them be kind, when their hearts are longing to help; and when we ourselves should wish to do just the same, if we were in their place.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

243. “During all the months that had elapsed since Mrs Hamley’s death, Molly had wondered many a time about the secret she had so unwittingly become possessed of that last day in the Hall library.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

244. “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

245. “In such towns in the south of England, Margaret had seen the shopmen, when not employed in their business, lounging a little at their doors, enjoying the fresh air, and the look up and down the street. Here, if they had any leisure from customers, they made themselves business in the shop – even, Margaret fancied, to the unnecessary unrolling and rerolling of ribbons.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

246. “Errands of mercy – errands of sin – did you ever think where all the thousands of people you daily meet are bound?”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

247. “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

248. “Fancy is three parts o’ love.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

250. “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