Top 380 Elizabeth Gaskell Quotes (2026 Update)
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351. “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

352. “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

353. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

355. “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

356. “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

357. “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

358. “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

359. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

361. “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

362. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

364. “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

365. “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

366. “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

367. “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

368. “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

369. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

371. “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

372. “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

373. “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

374. “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

375. “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

376. “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

377. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

380. “On some such night as this she remembered promising to herself to live as brave and noble a life as any heroine she ever read or heard of in romance, a life sans peur et sans reproche; it had seemed to her then that she had only to will, and such a life would be accomplished. And now she had learnt that not only to will, but also to pray, was a necessary condition in the truly heroic. Trusting to herself, she had fallen.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

381. “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

382. “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

383. “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

384. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell

387. “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

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

— Elizabeth Gaskell