Elizabeth Gaskell Quotes
-
He had not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his bones, and leanness goes a great way towards gentility.
-
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!
-
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!
-
For all his pain, he longed to see the author of it. Although he hated Margaret at times, when he thought of that gentle familiar attitude and all the attendant circumstances, he had a restless desire to renew her picture in his mind - a longing for the very atmosphere she breathed. He was in the Charybdis of passion, and must perforce circle and circle ever nearer round the fatal centre.
-
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.
-
As she realized what might have been, she grew to be thankful for what was.
-
A solitary life cherishes mere fancies until they become manias.
-
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 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.
-
A man is so in the way in the house.
-
A great matter calls her son with terms like deal, and love.
-
If you dare to injure her in the least, I will await you where no policeman can step in between. And God shall judge between us two.
-
She had a bracelet on one taper arm, which would fall down over her round wrist. Mr. Thornton watched the replacing of this troublesome ornament with far more attention than he listened to her father. It seemed as if it fascinated him to see her push it up impatiently, until it tightened her soft flesh; and then to mark the loosening—the fall. He could almost have exclaimed—'There it goes, again!
-
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.
-
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.
-
I look at books as a child looks at cakes - with glittering eyes and a watering mouth, imagining the pleasure that awaits him.
-
But the trees were gorgeous in their autumnal leafiness - the warm odours of flowers and herb came sweet upon the sense.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Nothing like the act of eating for equalizing men. Dying is nothing to it.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Mr. Thorton love Margaret! Why, Margraret would never think of him, I'm sure! Such a thing has never entered her head." "Entering her heart would do.
-
He loved her, and would love her; and defy her, and this miserable bodily pain.