Top 380 Elizabeth Gaskell Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “His was not the poor vanity that thinks more of the possible mortification of a refusal than of the precious jewel of a bride that may be won.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

302. “Jem had given it to him to bring to her; so it was safe enough; or, if it was not, why she should be glad never to set eyes on it again, for she could not abide fire-arms, they were so apt to shoot people.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

303. “She could not care for him, he thought, or else the passionate fervour of his wish would have forced her to raise those eyes, if but for an instant, to read the late repentance in his.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

304. “The visit promised to be more honorable than agreeable, and Maggie almost wished herself at home again.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

305. “I consider the thought as everything,′ said Mrs. Gibson. ‘Thought is spiritual, while action is merely material.’ This fine sentence took the speaker herself by surprise; and in such conversation as was then going on, it is not necessary to accurately define the meaning of everything that is said.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

306. “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

307. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

310. “When we are heavy-laden in our hearts, it falls in better with our humor to reveal our case in our own way and our own time.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

311. “I’m not a fool; and if I was, folk ought to ha’ taught me how to be wise after their fashion. I could mappen ha’ learnt, if any one had tried to teach me.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

312. “It was rather dull for Margaret after dinner. She was glad when the gentlemen came, not merely because she caught her father’s eye to brighten her sleepiness up; but because she could listen to something larger and grander than the petty interests which the ladies had been talking about.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

313. “I have been so curt, so abrupt, so abominably dull, that I’ll answer for it he thinks me worthy to be a man.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

315. “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

316. “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

317. “Come, begin with your objections. You’re not a woman if you have not a whole bag-full of them ready to turn down any reasonable proposal.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

318. “Some of my greatest difficulties lie in things that would appear to you comparatively trivial. I find it so hard to repel the rude familiarity of children. I find it so difficult to ask either servants or mistress for anything I want, however much I want it. It is less pain for me to endure the greatest inconvenience than to go into the kitchen to request its removal. I am a fool. Heaven knows I cannot help it!”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

319. “Hollingford speculated much on which young lady would become Mrs Gibson, and was rather sorry when the talk about possibilities, and the gossip about probabilities with regard to the handsome young surgeon’s marriage, ended in the most natural manner in the world, by his marrying his predecessor’s niece.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

320. “Each dainty little child ran up to its mother, or aunt, or particular friend; but Molly had no one to go to.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

321. “It’s the only way working men can get their rights, by all joining together. More the members, more chance for each one separate man having justice done him.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

322. “Or, in the triumph of the crowded procession, have the helpless been trampled on, instead of being gently lifted aside out of the roadway of the conqueror, whom they have no power to accompany on his march? It.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

323. “Her mother was one of those who throw out terrible possibilities, miserable probabilities, unfortunate chances of all kinds, as a rocket throws out sparks; but if the sparks light on some combustible matter, they smoulder first, and burst out into a frightful flame at last.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

324. “Partners whose names were in the ‘Red Book’ would not have produced half the amount of fatigue, according to Mrs. Gibson’s judgment apparently, and if Cynthia had been quite well, very probably she would have hit the blot in her mother’s speech with one of her touches of sarcasm.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

325. “You are vexed,′ said she, sadly; ‘yet how can I help it?’ She looked so truly grieved as she said this, that he struggled for a moment with his real disappointment, and then answered more cheerfully, but still with a little hardness in his tone:.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

329. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

332. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

334. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

336. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

338. “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

339. “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

340. “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

341. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

345. “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

346. “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

347. “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

348. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

350. “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