Elizabeth Gaskell's Quotes

The cloud never comes from the quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it.

How easy it is to judge rightly after one sees what evil comes from judging wrongly!

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.

Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.

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.

A little credulity helps one on through life very smoothly.

A wise parent humors the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and advisor when his absolute rule shall cease.

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.

To be sure a stepmother to a girl is a different thing to a second wife to a man!

I dreaded having a boring life when I grew up. And I certainly can't complain about being bored.

I had to learn not to let anyone push me around, to be brave and to say things I knew might make people mad.

I know of no country in the world that has passed a law specifically denying a woman's right to choose where she intends to give birth.

It's good to laugh at times that feel inappropriate.

We midwives and physicians have a lot to teach each other.

If birth matters, midwives matter. In Europe, there are hospitals where the cesarean rate is less than 10%, and you'll find midwives in these hospitals, you'll see a lot less re-admissions with infections and complications, and you'll see a lot less injury to mothers.

It's very rare to see an undisturbed birth in a modern U.S. teaching hospital, but when you see a woman who isn't frightened, who's giving birth without interference, you stand back in awe and realize how little needed you are except in the rare circumstance.

The best a health care system can do is to equip itself to meet the needs of each individual woman and birth. Those needs run the gamut from undisturbed home birth to planned cesarean section.