Elizabeth Gaskell Quotes

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

Elizabeth Gaskell

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

Elizabeth Gaskell

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

Elizabeth Gaskell

Ask , and it shall be given until you. That is no vain or untried promise, Ruth!

Elizabeth Gaskell

Thinking more of others' happiness than of her own was very fine; but did it not mean giving up her very individuality, quenching all the warm love, the true desires, that made her herself? Yet in this deadness lay her only comfort; so it seemed.

Elizabeth Gaskell

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

Elizabeth Gaskell

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.

Elizabeth Gaskell

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.

Elizabeth Gaskell

A little credulity helps one on through life very smoothly.

Elizabeth Gaskell

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

Elizabeth Gaskell

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

Elizabeth Gaskell

But suppose it was truth double strong, it were no truth to me if I couldna take it in. I daresay there's truth in yon Latin book on your shelves; but it's gibberish and no truth to me, unless I know the meaning o' the words.

Elizabeth Gaskell

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.

Elizabeth Gaskell

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!

Elizabeth Gaskell

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

Elizabeth Gaskell

...And as for your hair!it's worse than ever.Can't you drench it in water to take those untidy twists and twirls out of it?''It only makes it curl more and more whey it gets dry,' said Molly, sudden tears coming into her eyes as a recollection came before her like a picture seen long ago and forgotten for years-a young mother washing and dressing her little girl; placing the half-naked darling on her knee, and twining the wet rings of dark hair fondly round her fingers, and then, in ecstasy of fondness, kissing the little curly head.

Elizabeth Gaskell

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

Elizabeth Gaskell

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.

Elizabeth Gaskell