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Quote by Elizabeth Gaskell

“Thus, you see, he arrived at the same end, via supposed duty, that he was previously pledged to via interest. I fancy a good number of us, when any line of action will promote our own interest, can make ourselves believe that reasons exist which compel us to it as a duty.”

Quote by Elizabeth Gaskell

Work

My Lady Ludlow and Other Stories

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Author

Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Gaskell

Elizabeth Gaskell was a British novelist born on September 29, 1810, in Manchester. Her works primarily depicted the social life of Britain during the Industrial Revolution, focusing on the lives of the working class. Gaskell is renowned for her delicate emotional portrayal and profound social insight, with notable works including 'Mary Barton' and 'North and South'. more

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“[He] seemed to possess, beneath it all, an immutable sense of self-assurance, but in addition to that, the look of a man ensnared by what he perceived to be his own Duty. A Duty that effervesced inside of him impatiently, dry at the mouth, shaking feverishly, and holding its breath in anticipation for—not his action, but in fact—the fruits of his actions, however distant these may have been. The goal was to satiate its thirst in as few moves as possible, instilling each action with an almost implied necessity for having a motive by which it must exist, which is to say that no action was to be wasted for anything, but only for that which was rooted in some definable and clear-cut purpose...Every action had to be a step in some direction and there could be no dillydallying, for Duty bubbling in the bloodstream for too long brought with it a kind of sickness...from which it was difficult to recover. Neither could there be any reconsideration, for the values to which one has sworn were unassailable and beyond the powers of one individual to reassess. And so, Duty, once instilled, must be allowed to carry on unabated, diverting sustenance away from other aspects of one’s character—driving them to a weakened state, brow-beaten by circumstances beyond their immediate control and relegated to their own downtrodden acquiescence to the bravado of the Parasitic Superego, and, as such, cognizant of their growing superfluity.”

“She possessed a strong faculty for simply refusing to admit an unpleasant situation, and going quite blank where it was concerned. If, for instance, you had asked her whether, eighteen years before, she had undergone a face-lifting operation, she would have denied it, and believed the denial, and moreover would have supplied gratuitously, as a special joke, a list of people who had 'really' had their faces lifted or undergone other rejuvenating operations.”

“Non aveva bisogno di te come eri, ma di te come saresti potuta essere, oggetto d'arte più che d'amore, da sognare e prosciugare per la sua ispirazione. Sulla sua lapide volle queste parole: "Qui giace colui il cui nome fu scritto nell'acqua". Non si può amare un uomo che fugge ogni forma di solidificazione e gravità, per lui l'amore era solo la sua sete d'amore.”