Top 380 Elizabeth Gaskell Quotes (2025 Update)
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251. “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

252. “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

253. “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

254. “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

255. “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

256. “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

257. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

259. “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

260. “My young lady, you’ve a pretty good temper of your own.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

261. “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

262. “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

263. “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

264. “I do try to say, God’s will be done, sir,” said the Squire, looking up at Mr. Gibson for the first time, and speaking with more life in his voice; “but it’s harder to be resigned than happy people think.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

265. “She fell asleep, hoping for some brightness, either internal or external. But if she had known how long it would be before the brightness come, her heart would have sunk low down.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

266. “As if he did not feel the consciousness of her presence all over, though his eyes had never rested on her!”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

267. “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

268. “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

269. “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

270. “It is one of the great beauties of our system, that a working-man may raise himself into the power and position of a master by his own exertions and behaviour;.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

271. “He never looked at her, and yet, the careful avoidance of his eyes betokened that in some way he knew exactly where, if they fell by chance, they would rest on her.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

272. “I think if I had been differently brought up I shouldn’t have had the sore angry heart I have.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

273. “His thoughts did not come readily to the surface in the shape of words; nor was he apt at giving comfort till he saw his way clear to the real source from which consolation must come.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

274. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

276. “To use a Scotch word, every thing looked more ’purposelike.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

277. “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

278. “She was fain to get up and go convince herself that he was really there by listening through the door to his even, regular breathing – I don’t like to call it snoring, but I heard it myself through two closed doors.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

279. “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

280. “Writing was to him little more than an auxiliary to natural history; a way of ticketing specimens, not of expressing thoughts.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

282. “Nothing had been the same; and this slight, all-pervading instability, had given her greater pain than if all had been too entirely changed for her to recognise it.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

283. “The wife slept on, only roused by the cry of her child now and then, which seemed to have power over her, when far louder noises failed to disturb her.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

284. “For sure, th’ world is in a confusion that passes me or any other man to understand; it needs fettling, and who’s to fettle it, if it’s as yon folks say, and there’s nought but what we see?”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

285. “March brought the news of Frederick’s marriage. He and Dolores wrote; she in Spanish-English, as was but natural, and he with little turns and inversions of words which proved how far the idioms of his bride’s country were infecting him.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

286. “Do not let us have to think that the world has too much hardened our hearts.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

287. “Come poor little heart! be cheery and brave.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

288. “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

289. “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

290. “The air on the heights was so still that nothing seemed to stir. Now and then a yellow leaf came floating down from the trees, detached from no outward violence, but only because its life had reached its full limit and then ceased.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

293. “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

294. “And yet day by day had, of itself, and by itself, been very endurable – small, keen, bright little spots of enjoyment having come sparkling into the very middle of sorrows.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

296. “And that’s a less sin, to my mind, to making men’s hearts so hard that they’ll not do a kindness to them as needs it, or help on the right and just cause, though it goes again the strong hand.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

297. “It had been heavy in weight and long carried; and she had been very meek and patient, till all at once her faith had given way, and she had groped in vain for help!”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

298. “But Mrs. Gibson really meant to make Molly happy, and tried to be an agreeable companion, only Molly was not well, and was uneasy about many apprehended cares and troubles – and at such hours of indisposition as she was then passing through, apprehensions take the shape of certainties, lying await in our paths.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

299. “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

300. “When all are admitted, how can there be a Holy of Holies?”

— Elizabeth Gaskell