Elizabeth Gaskell Quotes

All the morning since he got up he had been trying to fight through his duties—leaning against a hope—a hope that first had bowed, and then had broke as soon as he really tried its weight.

And now she had learnt that not only to will, but also to pray, was a necessary condition in the truly heroic.

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

But fate it a cunning hussy, and builds up her plans as imperceptibly as a bird builds her nest; and with the same kind of unconsidered trifles.

But her little white thin hand lay in mine; and we understood each other without words.

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

Each dainty little child ran up to its mother, or aunt, or particular friend; but Molly had no one to go to.

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 thin...

I should have hoped to have trained him, my lady, to understand the rules of discretion.Trained! Train a barn-door fowl to be a pheasant, Mr. Horner! That would be the easier task. But you did right t...

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 inst...

MRS. BROWNING.

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 f...

Nothing had been the same; and this slight, all-pervading instability, had given her greater pain than if all had been too entirely changed for her to recognise it. I begin to understand now what heav...

Oh dear! how she could have loved him if he had but been different, with a difference which she felt, on reflection, to be one that went low—deep down.

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!

Pray don't go into similes, Margaret; you have led us off once already,' said her father, smiling, yet uneasy at the thought that they were detaining Mr. Thornton against his will, which was a mistake...

She could not make him change. He loved her, and would love her; and defy her, and this miserable bodily pain.

She found Nicholas busily engaged in making a penny spin on the dresser, for the amusement of three little children, who were clinging to him in a fearless manner. He, as well as they, was smiling at...

She listened to her story and her fears till the sobs were hushed; and the moon fell through the casement on the white closed eyelids of one, who still sighed in her sleep.

She must just submit, like many another, to be misunderstood;