Elizabeth Gaskell
A little credulity helps one on through life very smoothly.Collection: Life
Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.Collection: Wisdom
How easy it is to judge rightly after one sees what evil comes from judging wrongly!
The cloud never comes from the quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it.
I'll not listen to reason... reason always means what someone else has got to say.
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.
A wise parent humors the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and advisor when his absolute rule shall cease.
To be sure a stepmother to a girl is a different thing to a second wife to a man!
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.
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.
But the cloud never comes in that quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it.Collection: Clouds
I look at [books] as a child looks at cakes - with glittering eyes and a watering mouth, imagining the pleasure that awaits him.Collection: Children
Waiting is far more difficult than doing.Collection: Waiting
I won't say she was silly, but I think one of us was silly, and it wasn't me.Collection: Silly
Anticipation was the soul of enjoyment.Collection: Soul
As she realized what might have been, she grew to be thankful for what was.Collection: Being Thankful
Those who are happy and successful themselves are too apt to make light of the misfortunes of others.Collection: Successful
I value my own independence so highly that I can fancy no degradation greater than that of having another man perpetually directing and advising and lecturing me, or even planning too closely in any way about my actions. He might be the wisest of men, or the most powerful - I should equally rebel and resent his interference.Collection: Powerful
There is nothing like wounded affection for giving poignancy to anger.Collection: Father
A solitary life cherishes mere fancies until they become manias.Collection: Solitary Life
Opportunities are not often wanting where inclination goes before.Collection: Opportunity
There is always a pleasure in unravelling a mystery, in catching at the gossamer clue which will guide to certainty.Collection: Mystery
One may be clogged with honey and unable to rise and fly.Collection: May
It is bad to believe you in error. It would be infinitely worse to have known you a hypocrite.Collection: Believe
But the future must be met, however stern and iron it be.Collection: Iron
What's the use of watching? A watched pot never boils.Collection: Waiting
Were all men equal to-night, some would get the start by rising an hour earlier to-morrow.Collection: Equality
Really it is very wholesome exercise, this trying to make one's words represent one's thoughts, instead of merely looking to their effect on others.Collection: Exercise
In all disappointments sympathy is a great balm.Collection: Sympathy
Nothing like the act of eating for equalizing men. Dying is nothing to it.Collection: Men
Nevertheless, his moustachios are splendid.Collection: Splendid
But the trees were gorgeous in their autumnal leafiness - the warm odours of flowers and herb came sweet upon the sense.Collection: Sweet
Th' longest lane will have a turning.Collection: Hope
And so she shuddered away from the threat of his enduring love. What did he mean? Had she not the power to daunt him? She would see. It was more daring than became a man to threaten her.Collection: Mean
Oh, my Margaret--my Margaret! no one can tell what you are to me! Dead--cold as you lie there you are the only woman I ever loved! Oh, Margaret--Margaret!Collection: Lying
It seemed as though he gave way all at once; he was so languid that he could not control his thoughts; they would wander to her; they would bring back the scene,- not of his repulse and rejection the day before but the looks, the actions of the day before that. He went along the crowded streets mechanically, winding in and out among the people, but never seeing them, -almost sick with longing for that one half-hour-that one brief space of time when she clung to him, and her heart beat against his-to come once again.Collection: Heart
A great matter calls her son with terms like deal, and love.Collection: Son
Yes! He knew how she would love. He had not loved her without gaining that instinctive knowledge of what capabilities were in her. Her soul would walk in glorious sunlight if any man was worthy, by his power of loving, to win back her love.Collection: Winning
I do try to say, God’s will be done, sir,” said the Squire, looking up at Mr. Gibson for the first time, and speaking with more life in his voice; “but it’s harder to be resigned than happy people think.Collection: Thinking
I am so tired - so tired of being of being whirled on through all these phases of my life, in which nothing abides by me, no creature, no place; it is like the circle in which the victims of earthly passion eddy continually.Collection: Passion
But Margaret went less abroad, among machinery and men; saw less of power in its public effect, and, as it happened, she was thrown with one or two of those who, in all measures affecting masses of people, must be acute sufferers for the good of many. The question always is, has everything been done to make the sufferings of these exceptions as small as possible?Collection: Men
Take care. -If you do not speak- I shall claim you as my own in some presumptuous way. -Send me away at once, if I must go; -Margaret!-Collection: Care
She lay down and never stirred. To move hand or foot, or even so much as one finger, would have been an exertion beyond the powers of either volition or motion. She was so tired, so stunned, that she thought she never slept at all; her feverish thoughts passed and repassed the boundary between sleeping and waking, and kept their own miserable identity.Collection: Moving
But with the increase of serious and just ground of complaint, a new kind of patience had sprung up in her Mother's mind. She was gentle and quiet in intense bodily suffering, almost in proportion as she had been restless and depressed when there had been no real cause for grief.Collection: Mother
Miss Jenkyns wore a cravat, and a little bonnet like a jockey-cap, and altogether had the appearance of a strong-minded woman; although she would have despised the modern idea of women being equal to men. Equal, indeed! she knew they were superior.Collection: Strong
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!Collection: Past
She freshens me up above a bit. Who'd ha thought that face - as bright and as strong as the angel I dream of - could have known the sorrow she speaks on? I wonder how she'll sin. All on us must sing.Collection: Dream
When prayers were ended, and his Mother had wished him good-night with that long steady look of hers which conveyed no expression of the tenderness that was in her heart, but yet had all the intensity of a blessing.Collection: Good Night
Margaret had always dreaded lest her courage should fail her in any emergency, and she should be proved to be, what she dreaded lest she was--a coward. But now, in this real great time of reasonable fear and nearness of terror, she forgot herself, and felt only an intense sympathy--intense to painfulness--in the interests of the moment.Collection: Real
Neither loss of father, nor loss of mother, dear as she was to Mr Thornton, could have poisoned the remembrance of the weeks, the days, the hours, when a walk of two miles, every step of which was pleasant, as it brought him nearer and nearer to her, took him to her sweet presence - every step of which was rich, as each recurring moment that bore him away from her made him recal some fresh grace in her demeanour, or pleasant pungency in her character.Collection: Mother