Quote

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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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
Way
Value
Closely
Advising
Men
Greater
Rebel
Lecturing
Powerful
Highly
Perpetually
Values
Equally
Interference
Action
Fancy
Degradation
Another
Planning
Resent
Might
Independence
Wisest
Even
Actions
Directing

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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.
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Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.
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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.
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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.
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Thinking has, many a time, made me sad, darling but doing never did in all my life....My precept is, do something, my sister, do good if you can but at any rate, do something.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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What's the use of watching? A watched pot never boils.
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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But the future must be met, however stern and iron it be.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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He could not forget the touch of her arms around his neck, impatiently felt as it had been at the time but now the recollection of her clinging defence of him, seemed to thrill him through and through,—to melt away every resolution, all power of self-control, as if it were wax before a fire.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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I don't believe there's a man in Milton who knows how to sit still and it is a great art.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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He came up straight to her father, whose hands he took and wrung without a word - holding them in his for a minute or two, during which time his face, his eyes, his look, told of more sympathy than could be put into words.
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What other people may think of the rightness or wrongness is nothing in comparison to my own deep knowledge, my innate conviction that it was wrong.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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His laws once broken, His justice and the very nature of those laws bring the immutable retribution but if we turn penitently to Him, He enables us to bear our punishment with a meek and docile heart, ‘for His mercy endureth forever.
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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I know you despise me allow me to say, it is because you don't understand me.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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He is my first olive: let me make a face while I swallow it.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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I say Gibson, we're old friends, and you're a fool if you take anything I say as an offense. 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!
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Out of the way! We are in the throes of an exceptional emergency! This is no occassion for sport- there is lace at stake! (Ms. Pole)
Elizabeth Gaskell
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Were all men equal to-night, some would get the start by rising an hour earlier to-morrow.
Elizabeth Gaskell
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But Mr. Hale resolved that he would not be disturbed by any such nonsensical idea so he lay awake, determining not to think about it.
Elizabeth Gaskell