Top 380 Elizabeth Gaskell Quotes (2025 Update)
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351. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

353. “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

354. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

356. “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

357. “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

358. “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

359. “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

360. “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

361. “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

362. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

365. “What, I sometimes ask, could I do without them? I have recourse to them as to friends; they shorten and cheer many an hour that would be too long and too desolate otherwise; even when my tired sight will not permit me to continue reading, it is pleasant to see them on the shelf, or on the table.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

366. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

369. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

371. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

374. “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

375. “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

376. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

378. “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

379. “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

380. “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

381. “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

382. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

384. “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

385. “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

386. “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