Elizabeth Gaskell Quotations

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

A wise parent humors the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and advisor when his absolute rule shall cease.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

A little credulity helps one on through life very smoothly.

It is the first changes among familiar things that make such a mystery of time to the young; afterwards we lose the sense of the mysterious. I take changes in all I see as a matter of course. The instability of all human things is familiar to me, to you it is new and oppressive." (Mr. Bell)

We were none of us musical, though Miss Jenkyns beat time, out of time, by way of appearing to be so.

Bombazine would have shown a deeper sense of her loss.

A wise parent humours the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and advisor when his absolute rule shall cease.

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

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

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.

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

Anticipation was the soul of 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...

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Mr. Thornton," said Margaret, shaking all over with her passion, "go down this instant, if you are not a coward. Go down and face them like a man. Save these poor strangers, whom you have decoyed here. Speak to your workmen as if they were human beings. Speak to them kindly. Don't let the soldiers come in and cut down poor-creatures who are driven mad. I see one there who is. If you have any courage or noble quality in you, go out and speak to them, man to man.

He shook hands with Margaret. He knew it was the first time their hands had met, though she was perfectly unconscious of the fact.

But the trees were gorgeous in their autumnal leafiness - the warm odours of flowers and herb came sweet upon the sense.

..still to have loved her without return would have lifted you higher than all those, be they who they may, that have ever known her to love.

It had been a royal time of luxury to him, with all its stings and contumelies, compared to the poverty that crept round and clipped the anticipation of the future down to sordid fact, and life without an atmosphere of either hope or fear.

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

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.

As she realized what might have been, she grew to be thankful for what was.

I have passed out of childhood into old age. I have had no youth - no womanhood; the hopes of womanhood have closed for me - for I shall never marry; and I anticipate cares and sorrows just as if I were an old woman, and with the same fearful spirit.

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!-

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.

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?

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.

I could wish there were a God, if it were only to ask him to bless thee.

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.

I am the mother that bore you, and your sorrow is my agony; and if you don't hate her, i do' Then, mother, you make me love her more. She is unjustly treated by you, and I must make the balance even.

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.

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.

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.

I dare say there's many a woman makes as sad a mistake as I have done, and only finds it out too late.

How different men were to women!

A girl in love will do a good deal.

The question always is, has everything been done to make the sufferings of these exceptions as small as possible? 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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

A solitary life cherishes mere fancies until they become manias.

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

Th' longest lane will have a turning ...

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.

Opportunities are not often wanting where inclination goes before ...

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.

Waiting is far more difficult than doing.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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.

That kind of patriotism which consists in hating all other nations.

In all disappointments sympathy is a great balm.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

A great matter calls her son with terms like deal, and love.

He came up straight to her father, whose hands he took and wrung without a word - holding them in his for a minute or two, during which time his face, his eyes, his look, told of more sympathy than could be put into words.

He is my first olive: let me make a face while I swallow it.

I say Gibson, we're old friends, and you're a fool if you take anything I say as an offense. 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!

. . . it seemed to me that where others had prayed before to their God, in their joy or in their agony, was of itself a sacred place.

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.

He almost said to himself that he did not like her, before their conversation ended; he tried so hard to compensate himself for the mortified feeling, that while he looked upon her with an admiration he could not repress, she looked at him with proud indifference, taking him, he thought, for what, in his irritation, he told himself - was a great fellow, with not a grace or a refinement about him.

Nay, nay!” said the Squire. “It’s not so easy to break one’s heart. Sometimes I’ve wished it were. But one has to go on living—‘all the appointed days,’ as is said in the Bible.

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.

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...

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.

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.

She never called her son by any name but John; 'love' and 'dear', and such like terms, were reserved for Fanny.

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

I daresay it seems foolish; perhaps all our earthly trials will appear foolish to us after a while; perhaps they seem so now to angels. But we are ourselves, you know, and this is now, not some time to come, a long, long way off. And we are not angels, to be comforted by seeing the ends for which everything is sent.

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

I don't believe there's a man in Milton who knows how to sit still; and it is a great art.

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

Your husband this morning! Mine tonight! What do you take him for?' 'A man' smiled Cynthia. 'And therefore, if you won't let me call him changeable, I'll coin a word and call him consolable.

I wish I could love people as you do, Molly!' 'Don't you?' said the other, in surprise. 'No. A good number of people love me, I believe, or at least they think they do; but I never seem to care much for any one. I do believe I love you, little Molly, whom I have only known for ten days, better than any one.

But with the increase of serious and just ground of complaint, a new kind of patience had sprung up in her Mother's mind. She was gentle and quiet in intense bodily suffering, almost in proportion as she had been restless and depressed when there had been no real cause for grief.

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.

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.

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