Top 155 Quotes & Sayings by Elizabeth Gaskell
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a British novelist Elizabeth Gaskell.
Last updated on December 24, 2024.
I'll not listen to reason... reason always means what someone else has got to say.
A wise parent humors the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and advisor when his absolute rule shall cease.
The cloud never comes from the quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it.
My heart burnt within me with indignation and grief; we could think of nothing else. All night long we had only snatches of sleep, waking up perpetually to the sense of a great shock and grief. Every one is feeling the same. I never knew so universal a feeling.
How easy it is to judge rightly after one sees what evil comes from judging wrongly!
Madam your wife and I didn't hit it off the only time I ever saw her. I won't say she was silly, but I think one of us was silly, and it wasn't me.
People may flatter themselves just as much by thinking that their faults are always present to other people's minds, as if they believe that the world is always contemplating their individual charms and virtues.
A little credulity helps one on through life very smoothly.
Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.
To be sure a stepmother to a girl is a different thing to a second wife to a man!
When oranges came in, a curious proceeding was gone through. Miss Jenkyns did not like to cut the fruit, for, as she observed, the juice all ran out nobody knew where, sucking [only I think she used some more recondite word] was in fact the only way of enjoying oranges; but then there was the unpleasant association with a ceremony frequently gone through by little babies; and so, after dessert, in orange season, Miss Jenkyns and Miss Matty used to rise up, possess themselves each of an orange in silence, and withdraw to the privacy of their own rooms to indulge in sucking oranges.
What's the use of watching? A watched pot never boils.
But the future must be met, however stern and iron it be.
Nevertheless, his moustachios are splendid.
I would far rather have two or three lilies of the valley gathered for me by a person I like, than the most expensive bouquet that could be bought!
Waiting is far more difficult than doing.
Were all men equal to-night, some would get the start by rising an hour earlier to-morrow.
A solitary life cherishes mere fancies until they become manias.
Margaret the Churchwoman, her father the Dissenter, Higgins the Infidel, knelt down together. It did them no harm.
Mrs Forrester ... sat in state, pretending not to know what cakes were sent up, though she knew, and we knew, and she knew that we knew, and we knew that she knew that we knew, she had been busy all the morning making tea-bread and sponge-cakes.
Again, stepping nearer, he besought her with another tremulous eager call upon her name. 'Margaret!' Still lower went the head; more closely hidden was the face, almost resting on the table before her. He came close to her. He knelt by her side, to bring his face to a level with her ear; and whispered-panted out the words: — 'Take care. — If you do not speak — I shall claim you as my own in some strange presumptuous way.
As she realized what might have been, she grew to be thankful for what was.
What could he mean by speaking so, as if I were always thinking that he cared for me, when I know he does not; he cannot. ... But I won't care for him. I surely am mistress enough of myself to control this wild, strange, miserable feeling
Mr. Thornton felt that in this influx no one was speaking to Margaret, and was restless under this apparent neglect. But he never went near her himself; he did not look at her. Only, he knew what she was doing — or not doing — better than anyone else in the room. Margaret was so unconscious of herself, and so much amused by watching other people, that she never thought whether she was left unnoticed or not.
Th' longest lane will have a turning.
Every mile was redolent 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.
Margaret liked this smile; it was the first thing she had admired in this new friend of her father's; and the opposition of character, shown in all these details of appearance she had just been noticing, seemed to explain the attraction they evidently felt towards each other.
Opportunities are not often wanting where inclination goes before.
Margaret was not a ready lover, but where she loved she loved passionately, and with no small degree of jealousy.
Those who are happy and successful themselves are too apt to make light of the misfortunes of others.
There is nothing like wounded affection for giving poignancy to anger.
One may be clogged with honey and unable to rise and fly.
I look at [books] as a child looks at cakes - with glittering eyes and a watering mouth, imagining the pleasure that awaits him.
How was it that he haunted her imagination so persistently? What could it be? Why did she care for what he thought, in spite of all her pride in spite of herself? She believed that she could have borne the sense of Almighty displeasure, because He knew all, and could read her penitence, and hear her cries for help in time to come. But Mr.Thornton-why did she tremble, and hide her face in the pillow? What strong feeling had overtaking her at last?
Wearily she went to bed, wearily she arose in four or five hours' time. But with the morning came hope, and a brighter view of things.
Really it is very wholesome exercise, this trying to make one's words represent one's thoughts, instead of merely looking to their effect on others.
I dare not hope. I never was fainthearted before; but I cannot believe such a creature cares for me.
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.
Nothing like the act of eating for equalizing men. Dying is nothing to it.
No one loves me, - no one cares for me, but you, mother.
Of all faults the one she most despised in others was the want of bravery; the meanness of heart which leads to untruth.
Well, He had known what love was-a sharp pang, a fierce experience, in the midst of whose flames he was struggling! but, through that furnace he would fight his way out into the serenity of middle age,-all the richer and more human for having known this great passion.
One word more. You look as if you thought it tainted you to be loved by me. You cannot avoid it. Nay, I, if I would, cannot cleanse you from it. But I would not, if I could. I have never loved any woman before: my life has been too busy, my thoughts too much absorbed with other things. Now I love, and will love. But do not be afraid of too much expression on my part.
It is odd enough to see how the entrance of a person of the opposite sex into an assemblage of either men or women calms down the little discordances and the disturbance of mood.
In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his hip, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford.
I value my own independence so highly that I can fancy no degradation greater than that of having another man perpetually directing and advising and lecturing me, or even planning too closely in any way about my actions. He might be the wisest of men, or the most powerful - I should equally rebel and resent his interference.
I won't say she was silly, but I think one of us was silly, and it wasn't me.
Anticipation was the soul of enjoyment.
There was a filmy veil of soft dull mist obscuring, but not hiding, all objects, giving them a lilac hue, for the sun had not yet fully set; a robin was singing ... The leaves were more gorgeous than ever; the first touch of frost would lay them all low to the ground. Already one or two kept constantly floating down, amber and golden in the low slanting sun-rays.
It was her brother,' said Mr. Thornton to himself. 'I am glad.I may never see her again; but it is comfort-a relief-to know that much. I knew she could not be unmaidenly; and yet I yearned for conviction. Now I am glad!' It was a little golden thread running through the dark web of his present fortunes; which were growing ever gloomier and more gloomy.
But Mr. Hale resolved that he would not be disturbed by any such nonsensical idea; so he lay awake, determining not to think about it.
In all disappointments sympathy is a great balm.
Man, through all ages of revolving time, Unchanging man, in every varying clime, Deems his own land of every land the pride, Beloved by heaven o'er all the world beside; Home, the spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.
A man is so in the way in the house.
He shrank from hearing Margaret's very name mentioned; he, while he blamed her--while he was jealous of her--while he renounced her--he loved her sorely, in spite of himself.
Loyalty and obedience to wisdom and justice are fine; but it is still finer to defy arbitrary power, unjustly and cruelly used--not on behalf of ourselves, but on behalf of others more helpless.
But the cloud never comes in that quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it.
But the trees were gorgeous in their autumnal leafiness - the warm odours of flowers and herb came sweet upon the sense.
If you dare to injure her in the least, I will await you where no policeman can step in between. And God shall judge between us two.
That kind of patriotism which consists in hating all other nations.
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