407 Quotes by Elizabeth Gaskell

I wish I could tell you how lonely I am. How cold and harsh it is here. Everywhere there is conflict and unkindness. I think God has forsaken this place. I believe I have seen hell and it’s white, it’s snow-white.

Pooh! away with love! Nay, my dear, we loved each other so dearly we should never have been happy with any one else; but that’s a different thing. People aren’t like what they were when we were young. All the love nowadays is just silly fancy, and sentimental romance, as far as I can see.

Opportunities are not often wanting where inclination goes before...

She lay with her face to the wall, muttering low, but muttering always: Alas! alas! what is done in youth can never be undone in age! what is done in youth can never be undone in age!

What’s the use of watching? A watched pot never boils...

She used to sit long hours upon the beach, gazing intently on the waves as they chafed with perpetual motion against the pebbly shore, – or she looked out upon the more distant heave, and sparkle against the sky, and heard, without being conscious of hearing, the eternal psalm, which went up continually.

She took her mind away with a wrench from the recollection of the past to the bright serene contemplation of the hopeful future.

In short, Miss Hale, it is very evident that your informant found a pretty ready listener to all the slander he chose to utter against the masters,′ said Mr. Thornton, in an offended tone.

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.