Elizabeth Gaskell Quotes
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Opportunities are not often wanting where inclination goes before.
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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.
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She thought in would be awkward for both to be brought into conscious collision; and fancied that, from her being on a low seat at first, and now standing behind her father, he had overlooked her in his haste. As if he did not feel the consciousness of her presence all over, though his eyes had never rested on her!
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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.
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One may be clogged with honey and unable to rise and fly.
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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.
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Margaret the Churchwoman, her father the Dissenter, Higgins the Infidel, knelt down together. It did them no harm.
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Oh, my Margaret--my Margaret! no one can tell what you are to me! Dead--cold as you lie there you are the only woman I ever loved! Oh, Margaret--Margaret!
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Of all faults the one she most despised in others was the want of bravery; the meanness of heart which leads to untruth.
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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.
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She never called her son by any name but John; 'love' and 'dear', and such like terms, were reserved for Fanny.
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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!
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I look at books as a child looks at cakes - with glittering eyes and a watering mouth, imagining the pleasure that awaits him.
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How am I to dress up in my finery, and go off and away to smart parties, after the sorrow I have seen today?
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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.
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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.
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I do not look on self-indulgent, sensual people as worthy of my hatred; I simply look upon them with contempt for their poorness of character.
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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.
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A solitary life cherishes mere fancies until they become manias.
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But the future must be met, however stern and iron it be.
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As she realized what might have been, she grew to be thankful for what was.
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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.
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He had not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his bones, and leanness goes a great way towards gentility.
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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.