Top 380 Elizabeth Gaskell Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “My young lady, you’ve a pretty good temper of your own.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

253. “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

254. “And now sharper feelings came shooting through her heart, whether pain or pleasure she could hardly tell. Every mile was rodolent of associations, which she would not have missed for the world, but each of which made her cry upon ‘the days that are no more,’ with ineffable longing.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

255. “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

256. “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

257. “You know, my dears, that your mother was an orphan, and an only child; and I dare say you have heard that your grandfather was a clergyman up in Westmoreland, where I come from.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

258. “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

259. “But being anxious and sorrowful about the same thing makes people friends quicker than anything, I think.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

261. “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

262. “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

263. “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

264. “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

265. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

268. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

270. “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

271. “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

272. “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

273. “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

274. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

276. “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

277. “People admire talent, and talk about their admiration. But they value common sense without talking about it, and often without knowing it.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

278. “But how does your ladyship explain away her meetings with Mr Preston in all sorts of unlikely and open-air places?′ asked Miss Browning, who, to do her justice, would have been only too glad to join Molly’s partisans, if she could have preserved her character for logical deduction at the same time.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

279. “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

280. “If sometimes she forgot and let herself go into all her old naturalness, by-and-by she checked herself, and became comparatively cold and reserved. Roger was pained at all this – more pained day after day; more anxious to discover the cause.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

284. “Edith was in the mood to think that any pleasure enjoyed away from her was a tacit affront, or at best a proof of indifference.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

285. “I don’t think I am pretty,′ thought Molly, as she turned away from the glass; ‘and yet I am not sure.’ She would have been sure, if, instead of inspecting herself with such solemnity, she had smiled her own sweet merry smile, and called out the gleam of her teeth, and the charm of her dimples.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

288. “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

289. “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

290. “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

291. “As to th’ language, I’m welly used to it; it dunnot matter to me. I’m not nesh mysel’ when I’m put out. It were th’ fact that I were na wanted theer, no more nor ony other place, as I minded.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

292. “Tobacco and drink deaden the pangs of hunger, and make one forget the miserable home, the desolate future. They.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

293. “I can’t bear to part with you, and yet I am miserable with anxiety as long as you stop here.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

294. “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. Anybody might have used them, and, with a change of proper names, they might have served to describe any ball. She repeatedly used the same language in speaking about it, till Molly knew the sentences and their sequence even to irritation.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

295. “I don’t know that you would ever like him, or think him agreeable, Margaret. He is not a lady’s man.′ Margaret wreathed her throat in a scornful curve.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

296. “My idea of nursing is that one should not be always thinking of one’s own feelings and wishes, but doing those things which will most serve to beguile the weary hours of an invalid. But then so few people have had to consider the subject so deeply as I have done!′ Mrs. Gibson here thought fit to sigh before going on with Cynthia’s letter.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

297. “All that he gained in return for his sixpenny omnibus ride, was a more vivid conviction that there never was, never could be, any one like Margaret; that she did not love him and never would; but that she – no! nor the whole world – should never hinder him from loving her.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

298. “Both were not mental but physical illnesses. She was well aware of this, and would ask how that mended matters, as the feeling was there all the same, and was not removed by knowing the cause. She had a larger religious toleration than a person would have who had never questioned, and the manner of recommending religion was always that of offering comfort, not fiercely enforcing a duty.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

299. “That’s a nice girl of Gibson’s,′ quoth he to himself. ‘But what a tight hold the wench got of the notion of his marrying again! One had need be on one’s guard as to what one says before her. To think of her never having thought of the chance of a step-mother. To be sure, a step-mother to a girl is a different thing to a second wife to a man!”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

300. “She liked the exultation in the sense of power which these Milton men had. It might be rather rampant in its display, and savour of boasting; but still they seemed to defy the old limits of possibility, in a kind of fine intoxication, caused by the recollection of what had been achieved, and what yet should be.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell