Top 380 Elizabeth Gaskell Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “People admire talent, and talk about their admiration. But they value common sense without talking about it, and often without knowing it.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

253. “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

254. “But I’m tired of this bustle. Everybody rushing over everybody, in their hurry to get rich.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

255. “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

256. “If I had any prejudices, the gift of such delicious fruit as this would melt them all away.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

257. “He spoke two short sentences in a low voice, watching her all the time; for the pupils of her eyes dilated into a black horror, and the whiteness of her complexion became livid. He ceased speaking.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

258. “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

259. “What does it matter whether her husband dines in a dress–coat, or a market–coat, provided there be worth, and honesty, and a clean shirt underneath?”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

260. “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

261. “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

262. “Bear up, brave heart!”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

263. “But all laws which depend for their enforcement upon informers and fines, become inert from the odiousness of the machinery.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

264. “Why do you strike?′ asked Margaret. ‘Striking is leaving off work till you get your own rate of wages, is it not? You must not wonder at my ignorance; where I come from I never heard of a strike.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

265. “Does the woman think I have nothing to do but run about the country in search of brides and bridegrooms, when this great case of Houghton v. Houghton is coming on, and I have not a moment to spare?′ he asked of his wife. ‘Perhaps she never heard of it,’ suggested Mrs. Kirkpatrick. ‘Nonsense! the case has been in the papers for days.’ ‘But she mayn’t know you are engaged in it.’ ‘She mayn’t,’ said he, meditatively – such ignorance was possible.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

266. “They were on those happy terms where silence is permissible, and where efforts to act against the prevailing mood of the mind are not required.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

267. “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

268. “Sometimes people wondered that parents so handsome should have a daughter who was so far from regularly beautiful; not beautiful at all, was occasionally said.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

269. “I may be the Cinderella to put on the slipper after all.′ Margaret.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

270. “So the visit was deferred to that more convenient season which is so often too late.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

271. “Then, mother, you make me love her more. She is unjustly treated by you, and I must make the balance even. But why do we talk of love or hatred? She does not care for me, and that is enough, – too much. Let us never name the subject again. It is the only thing you can do for me in the matter. Let us never name her.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

272. “So piety demanded a new bonnet, or a new gown; and was barely satisfied with an Easter pair of gloves.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

273. “But to-night they were unusually late, and the aristocratic ozone being absent from the atmosphere, there was a flatness about the dancing of all those who considered themselves above the plebeian ranks of the tradespeople.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

274. “Somehow, I cannot forgive her for her neglect of me as a child, when I would have clung to her.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

275. “Your poor mother’s fond wish, gratified at last in the mocking way in which over-fond wished are too often fulfilled.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

278. “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

279. “He spoke as if the answer were a matter of indifference to him. But it was not so. For all his pain, he longed to see the author of it. Although he hated Margaret at times, when he thought of that gentle familiar attitude and all the attendant circumstances, he had a restless desire to renew her picture in his mind – a longing for the very atmosphere she breathed.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

280. “Still he loved on, and on, ever more fondly.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

281. “The spring of life had begun again to flow, and with the flow returned the old desires and projects and plans, which had all become mere matters of indifference during the worst part of her illness.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

282. “Mrs. Gibson had once or twice reproved them for the merry noise they had been making, which hindered her in the business of counting the stitches in her pattern; and she had set herself a certain quantity to do that morning before going out, and was of that nature which attaches infinite importance to fulfilling small resolutions, made about indifferent trifles without any reason whatever.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

283. “No propiamente incorrecto, pero tampoco del todo acertado.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

284. “The mourner before him was no longer the employer; a being of another race, eternally placed in antagonistic attitude; going through the world glittering like gold, with a stony heart within, which knew no sorrow but through the accidents of Trade; no longer the enemy, the oppressor, but a very poor and desolate old man.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

285. “Oh, of course,” he replied with a change to gravity in his tone. “There are forms and ceremonies to be gone through, not so much to satisfy oneself, as to stop the world’s mouth, without which stoppage there would be very little satisfaction in life.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

286. “Tell her to mind her own business the next time, instead of taking up your time and mine too. I believe women are at the bottom of every plague in this world. Be off with you.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

287. “Dead! buried! lost for evermore, as fear as earth’s for evermore could extend.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

288. “It would not have made a bit of difference,′ replied Cynthia. ‘I knew he liked me, and I like to be liked; it’s born in me to try to make every one I come near fond of me; but then they should not carry it too far, for it becomes very troublesome if they do. I shall hate red- haired people for the rest of my life. To think of such a man as that being the cause of your father’s displeasure with me!”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

289. “Oh! Margaret, could you not have loved me? I am but uncouth and hard, but I would never had led you into any falsehood for me.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

290. “This household had many failings: they were but human, and, with all their loving desire to bring their lives into harmony with the will of God, they often erred and fell short; but, somehow, the very errors and faults of one individual served to call out higher excellences in another, and so they reacted upon each other, and the result of short discords was exceeding harmony and peace.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

291. “He had not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his bones; and leanness goes a great way to gentility. His complexion was sallow, and his hair black;.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

292. “Don’t repeat evil on any authority unless you can do some good by speaking about it.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

293. “She went out, going rapidly towards the country, and trying to drown reflection by swiftness of motion.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

294. “Sorrows is more plentiful than dinners just now; I.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

295. “Ah! You may laugh; but that is only because I have not explained myself properly.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

296. “But there was danger of the child becoming dreamy, and finding her pleasure in life in reverie, not in action, or endurance, or the holy rest which comes after both, and prepares for further striving or bearing. – chapter 3.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

297. “And again it’s no fair play to t’ French. Four o’ them is rightly matched wi’ one o’ us; and if we go an’ fight ‘em four to four it’s like as if yo’ fell to beatin’ Sylvie there, or little Billy Croxton, as isn’t breeched. And that’s my mind.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

298. “I am not good, and I told you so. Somehow I cannot forgive her for her neglect of me as a child, when I would have clung to her. Besides, I hardly ever heard from her when I was at school. And I know she put a stop to my coming over to her wedding. I saw the letter she wrote to Madame Lefevre. A child should be brought up with its parents, if it is to think them infallible when it grows up.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

299. “I do not know whether I am brave or not till I am tried...”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

300. “He swept off his business right and left that day. It seemed as though his deep mortification of yesterday, and the stunned purposeless course of the hours afterwards, had cleared away all the mists from his intellect. He felt his power and revelled in it. He could almost defy his heart. If he had known it, he could have sang the song of the miller who lived by the river Dee: – “I care for nobody – Nobody cares for me.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell