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He is my first olive: let me make a face while I swallow it.

Elizabeth Gaskell

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Elizabeth Gaskell
Age: 54 †
Born: 1810
Born: September 29
Died: 1865
Died: January 12
Biographer
Novelist
Writer
London
England
Author of Mary Barton
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson
Mrs. Gaskell
née Stevenson
Make
Olive
Olives
Swallow
Face
Faces
Firsts
First

More quotes by Elizabeth Gaskell

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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.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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She never called her son by any name but John 'love' and 'dear', and such like terms, were reserved for Fanny.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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I wanted to see the place where Margaret grew to what she is, even at the worst time of all, when I had no hope of ever calling her mine.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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But the future must be met, however stern and iron it be.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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I know you despise me allow me to say, it is because you don't understand me.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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. . . it seemed to me that where others had prayed before to their God, in their joy or in their agony, was of itself a sacred place.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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Oh dear! A drunken infidel weaver! said Mr. Hale to himself.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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Nevertheless, his moustachios are splendid.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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Yet it was very difficult to separate her interpretation, and keep it distinct from his meaning.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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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.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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How different men were to women!
Elizabeth Gaskell
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Blot your misdeeds out (if you are particularly conscientious), by a good deed, as soon as you can just as we did a correct sum at school on the slate, where an incorrect one was only half rubbed out. It was better than wetting our sponge with our tears both less loss of time where tears had to be waited for, and a better effect at last.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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..still to have loved her without return would have lifted you higher than all those, be they who they may, that have ever known her to love.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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It is the first changes among familiar things that make such a mystery of time to the young afterwards we lose the sense of the mysterious. I take changes in all I see as a matter of course. The instability of all human things is familiar to me, to you it is new and oppressive. (Mr. Bell)
Elizabeth Gaskell
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Man, through all ages of revolving time, Unchanging man, in every varying clime, Deems his own land of every land the pride, Beloved by heaven o'er all the world beside Home, the spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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It had been a royal time of luxury to him, with all its stings and contumelies, compared to the poverty that crept round and clipped the anticipation of the future down to sordid fact, and life without an atmosphere of either hope or fear.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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Margaret found that the indifferent, careless conversations of one who, however kind, was not too warm and anxious a sympathizer, did her good.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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Trust a girl of sixteen for knowing well if she is pretty concerning her plainness she may be ignorant.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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Oh, I can't describe my home. It is home, and I can't put its charm into words
Elizabeth Gaskell
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He loved her, and would love her and defy her, and this miserable bodily pain.
Elizabeth Gaskell