Top 380 Elizabeth Gaskell Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 7 of 8

301. “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

302. “Mrs. Shaw had as strong wishes as most people, but she never liked to do anything from the open and acknowledged motive of her own good will and pleasure; she preferred being compelled to gratify herself by some other person’s command or desire. She really did persuade herself that she was submitting to some hard external necessity; and thus she was able to moan and complain in her soft manner, all the time she was in reality doing just what she liked.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

303. “I don’t know – I suppose because, on the very face on it, I see two classes dependent on each other in every possible way, yet each evidently regarding the interests of the other as opposed to their own.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

304. “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

305. “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

306. “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

307. “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

308. “I grieve to say that I possess no portrait of either of my sisters.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

311. “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

312. “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

313. “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

314. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

316. “Meanwhile, the younger Mr. Carson had ended his review, and began to listen to what was going on. He finished his breakfast, got up, and pulled five shillings out of his pocket, which he gave to Wilson as he passed him, for the “poor fellow.” He went past quickly, and calling for his horse, mounted gaily, and rode away.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

317. “Wild, strong hearts, and powerful minds, were hidden under an enforced propriety and regularity of demeanour and expression, just as their faces had been concealed by their father, under his stiff, unchanging mask.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

318. “One can’t account for everything,′ said Lady Harriet, a little impatiently, for reason was going hard against her. ‘But I choose to have faith in Molly Gibson. I’m sure she’s not done anything very wrong.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

319. “There she stood, very pale and quiet, with her large grave eyes observing everything, – up to every present circumstance, however small. They could not understand how her heart was aching all the time, with a heavy pressure that no sighs could lift off or relieve, and how constant exertion for her perceptive faculties was the only way to keep herself from crying out with pain.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

320. “Philip was somewhat of a pedant; yet there was a simplicity in his pedantry not always to be met with in those who are self-taught, and which might have interested any one who cared to know with what labour and difficulty he had acquired the knowledge which now he prized so highly;.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

321. “Margaret battled hard against this regret of hers for what could not now be helped; this self-reproach for having said what had at the time appeared to be wise, but which after events were proving to have been so foolish.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

322. “Mother’s love is given by God, John. It holds fast for ever and ever.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

323. “She thought that he was very much improved in manner, and probably in character, by his mother’s death. He was no longer sarcastic, or fastidious, or vain, or self-confident. She did not know how often all these styles of talk or of behaviour were put on to conceal shyness or consciousness, and to veil the real self from strangers. Osborne’s.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

324. “She had cast herself on the ground – that natural throne for violent sorrow – and leant up against the old moss-grown seat; sometimes burying her face in her hands; sometimes clasping them together, as if by the tight painful grasp of her fingers she could deaden mental suffering.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

325. “We found out that we mutually disliked each other, and were contented with the discovery. If people are worth anything, this sort of non-liking is a very good beginning of friendship. Every good quality is revealed naturally and slowly, and is a pleasant surprise.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

326. “The truth had entered his soul before this, and he knew that no doctor, be he ever so cunning, could, with all his striving, put the breath into that body again.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

327. “For indeed he had got into that kind of exaggerated susceptibility with regard to his wife’s faults, which may be best typified by the state of bodily irritation that is produced by the constant recurrence of any particular noise: those who are brought within hearing of it, are apt to be always on the watch for the repetition, if they are once made to notice it, and are in an irritable state of nerves.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

328. “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

329. “Well, and near our cottage were rocks. Eh, lasses! ye don’t know what rocks are in Manchester! Gray pieces o’ stone as large as a house, all covered over wi’ mosses of different colors, some yellow, some brown; and the ground beneath them knee deep in purple heather, smelling sae sweet and fragrant, and the low music of the humming-bee for ever sounding among it.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

330. “I like everybody to have an opinion of their own; only when my opinions are based on thought and experience, which few people have had equal opportunities of acquiring, I think it is but proper deference in others to allow themselves to be convinced. In fact, I think it is only obstinacy which keeps them from acknowledging that they are. I am not a despot, I hope?”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

331. “For all his pain, he longed to see the author of it.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

332. “But, after all, these were the small grievances of a very happy childhood.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

334. “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

335. “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

336. “She had never before ventured into the world, and did not know how common and universal is the custom of picking to pieces those with whom we have just been associating; and so it pained her.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

337. “A man is to me a higher and a completer being than a gentleman.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

338. “Very well,′ said Roger. ‘Tell them both as strongly as you can how I regret your prohibition. I see I must submit. But if I don’t come back, I’ll haunt you for having been so cruel.’ ‘Come, I like that. Give me a wise man of science in love! No one beats him in folly. Good-by.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

339. “It was all my money; it was not my all,” replied Mr Benson.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

341. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

343. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

346. “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

347. “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

348. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

350. “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