All Quotes by Elizabeth Gaskell
“She would fain have caught at the skirts of that departing time, and prayed it to return, and give her back what she had too little valued while it was yet in her possession. What a vain show Life seemed! How unsubstantial, and flickering, and flitting! It was as if from some aerial belfry, high up above the stir and jar of the earth, there was a bell continually tolling, ‘All are shadows!—all are passing!—all is past!”
“There was a filmy veil of soft dull mist obscuring, but not hiding, all objects, giving them a lilac hue, for the sun had not yet fully set; a robin was singing ... The leaves were more gorgeous than ever; the first touch of frost would lay them all low to the ground. Already one or two kept constantly floating down, amber and golden in the low slanting sun-rays.”
“A little credulity helps one on through life very smoothly.”
“Trust a girl of sixteen for knowing well if she is pretty; concerning her plainness she may be ignorant.”
“Were all men equal to-night, some would get the start by rising an hour earlier to-morrow.”
“A wise parent humours the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and adviser when his absolute rule shall cease.”
“That kind of patriotism which consists in hating all other nations.”
“It is odd enough to see how the entrance of a person of the opposite sex into an assemblage of either men or women calms down the little discordances and the disturbance of mood.”
“I daresay it seems foolish; perhaps all our earthly trials will appear foolish to us after a while; perhaps they seem so now to angels. But we are ourselves, you know, and this is now, not some time to come, a long, long way off. And we are not angels, to be comforted by seeing the ends for which everything is sent.”
“There was a filmy veil of soft dull mist obscuring, but not hiding, all objects, giving them a lilac hue, for the sun had not yet fully set; a robin was singing ... The leaves were more gorgeous than ever; the first touch of frost would lay them all low to the ground. Already one or two kept constantly floating down, amber and golden in the low slanting sun-rays.”
“People may flatter themselves just as much by thinking that their faults are always present to other people's minds, as if they believe that the world is always contemplating their individual charms and virtues.”
“Economy was always "elegant", and money-spending always "vulgar and ostentatious"; a sort of sour-grapeism, which made us very peaceful and satisfied.”
“A little credulity helps one on through life very smoothly.”
“I'll not listen to reason…Reason always means what someone else has got to say.”
“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.”