Elizabeth Gaskell quotes

Elizabeth Gaskell was an English novelist and short story writer, known for her detailed portrayals of Victorian society. Her works often explored class differences, women's issues, and industrialization. She became an influential literary figure whose novels remain widely read today. Here are 18 of her quotes:

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. (Elizabeth Gaskell)
A little credulity helps one on through life very smoothly. View quote
Elizabeth Gaskell
A wise parent humours the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and adviser when his absolute rule shall cease. View quote
Elizabeth Gaskell
I'll not listen to reason... reason always means what someone else has got to say. View quote
Elizabeth Gaskell
Were all men equal to-night, some would get the start by rising an hour earlier to-morrow. View quote
Elizabeth Gaskell
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. View quote
Elizabeth Gaskell
That kind of patriotism which consists in hating all other nations. View quote
Elizabeth Gaskell
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. View quote
Elizabeth Gaskell
Trust a girl of sixteen for knowing well if she is pretty; concerning her plainness she may be ignorant. View quote
Elizabeth Gaskell
But the cloud never comes in that quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it. View quote
Elizabeth Gaskell
Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom. (Elizabeth Gaskell)
How easy it is to judge rightly after one sees what evil comes from judging wrongly! View quote
Elizabeth Gaskell
Thinking more of others' happiness than of her own was very fine; but did it not mean giving up her very individuality, quenching all the warm love, the true desires, that made her herself? Yet in this deadness lay her only comfort; so it seemed. View quote
Elizabeth Gaskell
It was his general plan to repress emotion by not showing the sympathy he felt. View quote
Elizabeth Gaskell
Economy was always "elegant", and money-spending always "vulgar and ostentatious"; a sort of sour-grapeism, which made us very peaceful and satisfied. View quote
Elizabeth Gaskell
My heart burnt within me with indignation and grief; we could think of nothing else. All night long we had only snatches of sleep, waking up perpetually to the sense of a great shock and grief. Every one is feeling the same. I never knew so universal a feeling. View quote
Elizabeth Gaskell
To be sure a stepmother to a girl is a different thing to a second wife to a man! View quote
Elizabeth Gaskell
Madam your wife and I didn't hit it off the only time I ever saw her. I won't say she was silly, but I think one of us was silly, and it wasn't me. View quote
Elizabeth Gaskell