407 Quotes by Elizabeth Gaskell

They had grown up together from childhood, and all along Edith had been remarked upon by every one, except Margaret, for her prettiness;.

Let us alone, little woman. We understand each other, don’t we, doctor? Why, bless your life, he gives me better than he gets many a time; only, you see, he sugars it over, and says a sharp thing, and pretends it’s all civility and humility; but I can tell when he’s giving me a pill.

I never did write a biography, and I don’t exactly know how to set about it; you see I have to be accurate and keep to the facts, a most difficult thing for a writer of fiction.

She handed him his cup of tea with the proud air of an unwilling slave...

My precept is, “Do something, my sister, do good if you can; but, at any rate, do something.

They forgot that the strike was in this instance the consequence of want and need, suffered unjustly, as the endurers believed; for, however insane, and without ground of reason, such was their belief, and such was the cause of their violence. It is a great truth that you cannot extinguish violence by violence. You may put it down for a time; but while you are crowing over your imaginary success, see if it does not return with seven devils worse than its former self! No.

Real meekness of character is called out by experience of kindness.

Well, now, sir, I put it to yo’, being a parson, and having been in th’ preaching line, and having had to try and bring folk o’er to what yo’ thought was a right way o’ thinking – did yo’ begin by calling ‘em fools and such like, or didn’t yo’ rayther give ’em some kind words at first, to make ’em ready for to listen and be convinced, if they could;.

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.