Top 380 Elizabeth Gaskell Quotes (2024 Update)
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301. “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

302. “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

303. “No tenemos derecho a comparar el valor de una vida humana con otra.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

304. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

306. “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

307. “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

308. “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

309. “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

310. “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

311. “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

312. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

315. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

317. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

319. “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

320. “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

321. “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

322. “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

323. “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

324. “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

325. “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

326. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

329. “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

330. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

334. “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

335. “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

336. “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

337. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

339. “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

340. “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

341. “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

342. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

344. “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

345. “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

346. “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

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

— 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. “About Emily : “she never showed regard to any human creature; all her love was reserved for animals”.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell