Elizabeth Gaskell Quotes

We do not look for reason for logic in the passionate entreaties of those who are sick unto death; we are stung with the recollection of a thousand slighted opportunities of fulfilling the wishes of those who will soon pass away from among us: and do they ask us for the future happiness of our lives, we lay it at their feet, and will it away from us.

Look back. Look back at me." Richard Armitage spoke this line in the movie North and South as he watched Miss Hale drive away in a carriage.

Th' longest lane will have a turning.

I take it that 'gentleman' is a term that only describes a person in his relation to others; but when we speak of him as 'a man,' we consider him not merely with regard to his fellow-men, but in relation to himself,--to life--to time--to eternity.

It is bad to believe you in error. It would be infinitely worse to have known you a hypocrite.

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.

The French girls would tell you, to believe that you were pretty would make you so.

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)

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

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!

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.

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.

Oh! that look of love!" continued he, between his teeth, as he bolted himself into his own private room. "And that cursed lie; which showed some terrible shame in the background, to be kept from the light in which I thought she lived perpetually! Oh, Margaret, Margaret! Mother, how you have tortured me! Oh! Margaret, could you not have loved me? I am but uncouth and hard, but I would never have led you into any falsehood for me.

He could not - say rather, he would not - deny himself the chance of the pleasure of seeing Margaret. He had no end in this but the present gratification.

I know you despise me; allow me to say, it is because you don't understand me.

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.

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

A little credulity helps one on through life very smoothly.

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

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

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

Similarity of opinion is not always—I think not often—needed for fullness and perfection of love.

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

It seemed as though he gave way all at once; he was so languid that he could not control his thoughts; they would wander to her; they would bring back the scene,- not of his repulse and rejection the day before but the looks, the actions of the day before that. He went along the crowded streets mechanically, winding in and out among the people, but never seeing them, -almost sick with longing for that one half-hour-that one brief space of time when she clung to him, and her heart beat against his-to come once again.

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.

I wanted to see the place where Margaret grew to what she is, even at the worst time of all, when I had no hope of ever calling her mine.

She stood by the tea-table in a light-coloured muslin gown, which had a good deal of pink about it. She looked as if she was not attending to the conversation, but solely busy with the tea-cups, among which her round ivory hands moved with pretty, noiseless, daintiness.

Yes! He knew how she would love. He had not loved her without gaining that instinctive knowledge of what capabilities were in her. Her soul would walk in glorious sunlight if any man was worthy, by his power of loving, to win back her love.

His laws once broken, His justice and the very nature of those laws bring the immutable retribution; but if we turn penitently to Him, He enables us to bear our punishment with a meek and docile heart, ‘for His mercy endureth forever.

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

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

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.

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.

But Margaret was at an age when any apprehension, not absolutely based on a knowledge of facts, is easily banished for a time by a bright sunny day, or some happy outward circumstance. And when the brilliant fourteen fine days of October came on, her cares were all blown away as lightly as thistledown, and she thought of nothing but the glories of the forest.

Yet it was very difficult to separate her interpretation, and keep it distinct from his meaning.

Did I ever say an engagement was an elephant, madam?

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!-

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

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.

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.

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.

She freshens me up above a bit. Who'd ha thought that face - as bright and as strong as the angel I dream of - could have known the sorrow she speaks on? I wonder how she'll sin. All on us must sing.

If they came sorrowing, and wanting sympathy in a complicated trouble like the present, then they would be felt as a shadow in all these houses of intimate acquaintances, not friends