Elizabeth Gaskell famous quotes

The cloud never comes from the quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Clouds #Watches #Horizon

There is nothing like wounded affection for giving poignancy to anger.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Father #Anger #Giving

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.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Jealous #Names #Hearing

I dare not hope. I never was fainthearted before; but I cannot believe such a creature cares for me.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Believe #Care #Dare

Margaret was not a ready lover, but where she loved she loved passionately, and with no small degree of jealousy.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Degrees #Lovers #Ready

Those who are happy and successful themselves are too apt to make light of the misfortunes of others.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Successful #Light #Misfortunes Of Others

Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Wise #Wisdom #Stupid

Anticipation was the soul of enjoyment.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Soul #Anticipation #Enjoyment

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...
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Powerful #Men #Independence

But the future must be met, however stern and iron it be.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Iron #Mets

I am so tired - so tired of being of being whirled on through all these phases of my life, in which nothing abides by me, no creature, no place; it is like the circle in which the victims of earthly passion eddy continually.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Passion #Tired #Circles

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

#Night #Romance #Brave

How easy it is to judge rightly after one sees what evil comes from judging wrongly!
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Evil #Judging #Judgement

I look at [books] as a child looks at cakes - with glittering eyes and a watering mouth, imagining the pleasure that awaits him.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Children #Book #Eye

I'll not listen to reason... reason always means what someone else has got to say.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Women #Memorable #Mean

I’m not saying she was very silly, but one of us was very silly and it wasn’t me.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Silly

It seems strange to think, that what gives us most hope for the future should be called Dolores, said Margaret.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Thinking #Giving #Strange

When prayers were ended, and his Mother had wished him good-night with that long steady look of hers which conveyed no expression of the tenderness that was in her heart, but yet had all the intensity of a blessing.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Good Night #Mother #Prayer

But the monotonous life led by invalids often makes them like children, inasmuch as thy have neither of them any sense of proportion in events, and seem each to believe that the walls and curtains which shut in their world, and shut out everything else, must of necessity be larger than anything hidden beyond.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Children #Wall #Believe

She lay down and never stirred. To move hand or foot, or even so much as one finger, would have been an exertion beyond the powers of either volition or motion. She was so tired, so stunned, that she thought she never slept at all; her feverish thoughts passed and repassed the boundary between sleeping and waking, and kept their own miserable identity.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Moving #Tired #Sleep

And so she shuddered away from the threat of his enduring love. What did he mean? Had she not the power to daunt him? She would see. It was more daring than became a man to threaten her.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Mean #Men #Enduring Love

I would not trust a mouse to a woman if a man's judgment could be had.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Trust #Judgment #Mice

Miss Jenkyns wore a cravat, and a little bonnet like a jockey-cap, and altogether had the appearance of a strong-minded woman; although she would have despised the modern idea of women being equal to men. Equal, indeed! she knew they were superior.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Strong #Men #Ideas

Oh, Mr. Thornton, I am not good enough!' 'Not good enough! Don't mock my own deep feeling of unworthiness.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Not Good Enough #Feelings #Deep Feeling

She had a fierce pleasure in the idea of telling Margaret unwelcome truths, in the shape of performance of duty.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Ideas #Shapes #Fierce

Take care. -If you do not speak- I shall claim you as my own in some presumptuous way. -Send me away at once, if I must go; -Margaret!-
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Care #Way #Speak

She would fain have caught at the skirts of that departing time, and prayed it to return, and give her back what she had too little valued while it was yet in her possession. What a vain show Life seemed! How unsubstantial, and flickering, and flitting! It was as if from some aerial belfry, high up above the stir and jar of the earth, there was a bell continually tolling, ‘All are shadows!—all are passing!—all is past!
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Past #Giving #Shadow

Margaret had always dreaded lest her courage should fail her in any emergency, and she should be proved to be, what she dreaded lest she was--a coward. But now, in this real great time of reasonable fear and nearness of terror, she forgot herself, and felt only an intense sympathy--intense to painfulness--in the interests of the moment.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Real #Coward #Emergencies

Thinking has, many a time, made me sad, darling; but doing never did in all my life....My precept is, do something, my sister, do good if you can; but at any rate, do something.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Thinking #My Sister #Made

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.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#World #Association #Cry

How am I to dress up in my finery, and go off and away to smart parties, after the sorrow I have seen today?
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Smart #Party #Sorrow

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.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Names #Ears #Levels

There is always a pleasure in unravelling a mystery, in catching at the gossamer clue which will guide to certainty.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Mystery #Clue #Pleasure

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.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Sex #Men #Opposites

I never did write a biography, and I don't exactly know how to set about it; you see I have to be accurate and keep to the facts, a most difficult thing for a writer of fiction.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Writing #Fiction #Biographies

A solitary life cherishes mere fancies until they become manias.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Fancy #Cherish #Solitary

What's the use of watching? A watched pot never boils ...
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Waiting #Anxiety #Use

Th' longest lane will have a turning ...
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Hope #Lanes

All the earth, though it were full of kind hearts, is but a desolation and desert place to a mother when her only child is absent.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Mother #Children #Heart

Opportunities are not often wanting where inclination goes before ...
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Opportunity

A man is so in the way in the house.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Women #Men #House

He had not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his bones, and leanness goes a great way towards gentility.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Body #Flesh #Way

If Mr. Thornton was a fool in the morning, as he assured himself at least twenty times he was, he did not grow much wiser in that afternoon. All that he gained in return for his sixpenny omnibus ride, was a more vivid conviction that there never was, never could be, any one like Margaret; that she did not love him and never would; but that she — no! nor the whole world — should never hinder him from loving her.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Morning #Twenties #Afternoon

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.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#People #Looks #Rooms

He had tenderness in his heart — ‘a soft place,’ as Nicholas Higgins called it; but he had some pride in concealing it; he kept it very sacred and safe, and was jealous of every circumstance that tried to gain admission. But if he dreaded exposure of his tenderness, he was equally desirous that all men should recognize his justice; and he felt that he had been unjust, in giving so scornful a hearing to anyone who had waited, with humble patience, for five hours, to speak to him.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Jealous #Heart #Humble

What other people may think of the rightness or wrongness is nothing in comparison to my own deep knowledge, my innate conviction that it was wrong.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Thinking #People #May

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.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Exercise #Trying

Trust a girl of sixteen for knowing well if she is pretty; concerning her plainness she may be ignorant.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Girl #Knowing #Ignorant

To be sure a stepmother to a girl is a different thing to a second wife to a man!
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Girl #Second Chance #Men

Were all men equal to-night, some would get the start by rising an hour earlier to-morrow.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Equality #Night #Men

Don't think to come over me with th' old tale, that the rich know nothing of the trials of the poor; I say, if they don't know, they ought to know.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Thinking #Trials #Rich

Only you're right in saying she's too good an opinion of herself to think of you. The saucy jade! I should like to know where she'd find a better!
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Thinking #Jade #Opinion

But I was right. I think that must be an hereditary quality, for my father says he is scarcely ever wrong.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Father #Thinking #Quality

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

#Thinking #Voice #People

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
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Mean #Thinking #Feelings

Out of the way! We are in the throes of an exceptional emergency! This is no occassion for sport- there is lace at stake!" (Ms. Pole)
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Sports #Way #Emergencies

Don’t be afraid,” she said, coldly, “ as far as love may go she may be worthy of you. It must have taken a good deal to overcome her pride. Don’t be afraid, John.
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Taken #Pride #Overcoming

But Margaret went less abroad, among machinery and men; saw less of power in its public effect, and, as it happened, she was thrown with one or two of those who, in all measures affecting masses of people, must be acute sufferers for the good of many. The question always is, has everything been done to make the sufferings of these exceptions as small as possible?
-- Elizabeth Gaskell

#Men #Two #People