407 Quotes by Elizabeth Gaskell

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.

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.

Love me as I am, sweet one, for I shall never be better.

In a few minutes tea was brought. Very delicate was the china, very old the plate, very thin the bread-and-butter, and very small the lumps of sugar. Sugar was evidently Mrs. Jamieson's favourite economy.

You know the proverb, Mr. Hale, 'set a beggar on horseback, and he'll ride to the devil' - well, some of these early manufacturers did ride to the devil in a magnificent style - crushing human bone and flesh beneath their horses' hoofs without remorse.

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.

...somehow, the very errors and faults of one individual served to call out the higher excellencies in another, and so they re-acted upon each other, and the result of short discords was exceeding harmony and peace.

Sally, do you think God has put us into the world just to be selfish, and do nothing but see after our own souls? or to help one another with heart and hand, as Christ did to all who wanted help?

I only mean, Bessy, there's good and bad in everything in this world; and as you felt the bad up here, I thought it was but fair you should know the bad down there.