Wives and Daughters Quotes

“Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“How easy it is to judge rightly after one sees what evil comes from judging wrongly.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“There is nothing like wounded affection for giving poignancy to anger.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“I won't say she was silly, but I think one of us was silly, and it was not me.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“The French girls would tell you, to believe that you were pretty would make you so.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“I say, Gibson, we're old friends, and you're a fool if you take anything I say as an offence. Madam your wife and I did not 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 was not me.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“Did I ever say an engagement was an elephant, madam?”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“I would far rather have two or three lilies of the valley gathered for me by a person I like, than the most expensive bouquet that could be bought!”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“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.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“Nay, nay!” said the Squire. “It’s not so easy to break one’s heart. Sometimes I’ve wished it were. But one has to go on living—‘all the appointed days,’ as is said in the Bible.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“All sorts of thoughts cross one's mind—it depends upon whether one gives them harbour and encouragement”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“Oh! A little bird told us,' said Miss Browning. Molly knew that little bird from her childhood, and had always hated it, and longed to wring its neck. Why could not people speak out and say that they did not mean to give up the name of their informant?”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“Love me as I am, sweet one, for I shall never be better.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“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.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“But fate it a cunning hussy, and builds up her plans as imperceptibly as a bird builds her nest; and with the same kind of unconsidered trifles.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“I wish I could love people as you do, Molly!'
'Don't you?' said the other, in surprise.
'No. A good number of people love me, I believe, or at least they think they do; but I never seem to care much for any one. I do believe I love you, little Molly, whom I have only known for ten days, better than any one.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“Your husband this morning! Mine tonight! What do you take him for?'
'A man' smiled Cynthia. 'And therefore, if you won't let me call him changeable, I'll coin a word and call him consolable.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“I think that if advice is good it's the best comfort.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“To begin with the old rigmarole of childhood. In a country there was a shire, and in that shire there was a town, and in that town there was a house, and in that house there was a room, and in that room there was a bed, and in that bed there lay a little girl;”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“It is right to hope for the best about everybody, and not to expect the worst. This sounds like a truism, but it has comforted me before now, and some day you'll find it useful. One has always to try to think more of others than of oneself, and it is best not to prejudge people on the bad side.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“he had never known her value, he thought, till now.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“As far as one knows of heroines from history. I'm capable of a great jerk, an effort, and then a relaxation—but steady every-day goodness is beyond me. I must be a moral kangaroo!”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“Women are queer, unreasoning creatures, and are just as likely as not to love a man who has been throwing away his affection.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“She did not answer. She could not tell what words to use. She was afraid of saying anything, lest the passion of anger, dislike, indignation - whatever it was that was boiling up in her breast - should find vent in cries and screams, or worse, in raging words that could never be forgotten. It was as if the piece of solid ground on which she stood had broken from the shore, and she was drifting out to the infinite sea alone.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“he is the personification of sensible silence.”
― Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“Oh, don't be so wise and stupid.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“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.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“Never mind what she was; look at what she is!”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“I did try to remember what you said, and to think more of others, but it is so difficult sometimes [...] live only in trying to do, and to be, as other people like. I don't see any end to it. I might as well never have lived.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“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.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters