Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“Propensities and principles must be reconciled by some means.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Graham’s thoughts of me were not entirely those of a frozen indifference, after all. I believe in that goodly mansion, his heart, he kept one little place under the skylights where Lucy might have entertainment, if she chose to call. It was not so handsome as the chambers where he lodged his male friends; it was not like the hall where he accommodated his philanthropy, or the library where he treasured his science, still less did it resemble the pavilion where his marriage feast was splendidly spread; yet, gradually, by long and equal kindness, he proved to me that he kept one little closet, over the door of which was written ‘Lucy’s Room.’ I kept a place for him too — a place of which I never took the measure, either by rule or compass: I think it was like the tent of Peri-Banou. All my life long I carried it folded in the hollow of my hand — yet, released from that hold and constriction, I knew not but its innate capacity for expanse might have magnified it into a tabernacle for a host.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Rochester: My bride is here, because my equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“How can it be that Jane is with me, and says she loves me? Will she not depart as suddenly as she came? To-morrow, I fear I shall find her no more.”
― Charlotte Brontë Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Take it to your Maker - show Him the secrets of the spirit He gave - ask Him how you are to bear the pains He appointed - kneel in His presence, and pray with faith for light in darkness, for strength in piteous weakness, for patience in extreme need. Certainly, at some hour, though perhaps not your hour, the waiting waters will stir; in some shape, though not perhaps the shape you dreamed, which your heart loved, and for which it bled, the healing herald will descend.”
― Charlotte Bronte

“The writer who possesses the creative gift of fantasy owns something of which he is not always master; something that, at times, strangely wills and works for itself.”
― Charlotte Bronte

“Reserved people often really need the frank discussion of their sentiments and griefs more than the expansive. The sternest-seeming stoic is human after all, and to burst with boldness and good-will into the silent sea of their souls is often to confer on them the first of obligations.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“He wrote because he liked to write; he did not abridge, because he cared not to abridge. He sat down, he took pen and paper, because he loved Lucy and had much to say to her; because he was faithful and thoughtful, because he was tender and true.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“I believed in the existence of other and more vivid kinds of goodness, and what I believed in I wished to behold.
Who blames me? Many, no doubt: and I shall be called discontented. I could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of the third story, backwards and forwards, safe in the silence and solitude of the spot, and allow my mind’s eye to dwell on whatever bright visions rose before it—and, certainly, they were many and glowing; to let my heart be heaved by the exultant movement, which, while it swelled it in trouble, expanded it with life; and, best of all, to open my inward ear to a tale that was never ended—a tale my imagination created, and narrated continuously; quickened with all of incident, life, fire, feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual existence.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Your station is in my heart, and on the necks of those who would insult you.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I could not answer the ceaseless inward question-why I thus suffered; now, at the distance of-I will not say how many years, I see it clearly.”
― Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

“Who told you I was called Carl David?" "A little bird, Monsieur." "Does it fly from me to you? Then one can tie a message under its wing when needful.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“I was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble rolled under surges of joy. I thought sometimes I saw beyond its wild waters a shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and now and then a freshening gale, wakened my hope, bore my spirit, triumphantly towards the bourne: but I could not reach it, even in fancy,--a counteracting breeze blew off land, and continually drove me back. Sense would resist delirium; judgment would warn passion”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“If he does go, the change will be doleful. Suppose he should be absent spring, summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine and fine days will seem!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“No man likes to acknowledge that he has made a mistake in the choice of his profession, and every man, worthy of the name, will row long against wind and tide before he allows himself to cry out, 'I am baffled!' and submits to be floated passively back to land.”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Professor

“Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It is strange,' pursued he, 'that while I love Rosomond Oliver so wildly-with all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the object of which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, and fascinating--I experience at the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness, that she would not make me a good wife; that she is not the partner suited to me; that I should discover this within a year after marriage; and that to twelve months' rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret. This I know.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Beauty is given to dolls, majesty to haughty vixens, but mind, feeling, passion and the crowning grace of fortitude are the attributes of an angel.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Tales of Angria

“Reader, I married him. A quiet wedding we had: he and I, the parson and clerk, were alone present.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I know that a pretty doll, a fair fool, might do well enough for the honeymoon; but when passion cooled, how dreadful to find a lump of wax and wood laid in my bosom, a half-idiot clasped in my arms, and to remember that I had made of this my equal- nay, my idol- to know that I must pass the rest of my dreary life with a creature incapable of understanding what I said, of appreciating what I thought, or of sympathising with what I felt!”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Professor

“Better to try all things and find all empty, than to try nothing and leave your life a blank.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Human beings never enjoy complete happiness in this world. I was not born for a different destiny to the rest of my species: to imagine such a lot befalling me is a fairy tale -- a daydream."
"Which I can and will realise. I shall begin today.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I tell you I must go!” I retorted, roused to something like passion. “Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton?—a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!—I have as much soul as you,—and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;—it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal,—as we are!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Reader, I married him. A quiet wedding we had: he and I, the parson and clerk, were alone present.”
― Jane Eyre

“Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong — I have as much soul as you, — and full as much heart.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“But when one does not complain, and when one wants to master oneself with a tyrant’s grip — one’s faculties rise in revolt — and one pays for outward calm with an almost unbearable inner struggle.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“I will do my best: it is a pity that doing one's best does not always answer.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“That bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, "the waters came into my soul; I sank in deep mire: I felt no standing; I came into deep waters; the floods overflowed me.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It was in looking up at him her aspect had caught its lustre - the light repeated in her eyes beamed first out of his.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you - especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land some broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you - you'd forget me.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre