Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“Farewell!" was the cry of my heart as I left him. Despair added, "Farewell for ever!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I will bestir myself,' was her resolution, 'and try to be wise if I cannot be good.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within me, was claiming mastery, and struggling for full sway; and asserting a right to predominate: to overcome, to live, rise, and reign at last; yes,--and to speak.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of the third storey, 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

“Come, Miss Jane, don't cry,' said Bessie, as she finished. She might as well have said to the fire, 'Don't burn!' but how could she divine the morbid suffering to which I was a prey?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Too often do reviewers remind us of the mob of Astrologers, Chaldeans, and Soothsayers gathered before 'the writing on the wall' and unable to read the characters or make known the interpretation.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“You mocking changeling- fairy-born and human-bred!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Presentiments are strange things: and so are sympathies; and so are signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity had not yet found the key.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The word book acted as a transient stimulus”
― Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

“Milton's Eve! Milton's Eve! ... Milton tried to see the first woman; but Cary, he saw her not ... I would beg to remind him that the first men of the earth were Titans, and that Eve was their mother: from her sprang Saturn, Hyperion, Oceanus; she bore Prometheus" --

"Pagan that you are! what does that signify?"

"I say, there were giants on the earth in those days: giants that strove to scale heaven. The first woman's breast that heaved with life on this world yielded the daring which could contend with Omnipotence: the stregth which could bear a thousand years of bondage, -- the vitality which could feed that vulture death through uncounted ages, -- the unexhausted life and uncorrupted excellence, sisters to immortality, which after millenniums of crimes, struggles, and woes, could conceive and bring forth a Messiah. The first woman was heaven-born: vast was the heart whence gushed the well-spring of the blood of nations; and grand the undegenerate head where rested the consort-crown of creation. ...
I saw -- I now see -- a woman-Titan: her robe of blue air spreads to the outskirts of the heath, where yonder flock is grazing; a veil white as an avalanche sweeps from hear head to her feet, and arabesques of lighting flame on its borders. Under her breast I see her zone, purple like that horizon: through its blush shines the star of evening. Her steady eyes I cannot picture; they are clear -- they are deep as lakes -- they are lifted and full of worship -- they tremble with the softness of love and the lustre of prayer. Her forehead has the expanse of a cloud, and is paler than the early moon, risen long before dark gathers: she reclines her bosom on the ridge of Stilbro' Moor; her mighty hands are joined beneath it. So kneeling, face to face she speaks with God. That Eve is Jehova's daughter, as Adam was His son.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need not ask you; because you never felt love. You have both sentiments yet to experience: your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall waken it. You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in which your youth has hitherto slid away. Floating on with closed eyes and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling not far off in the bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at their base. But I tell you--and you may mark my words--you will come some day to a craggy pass in the channel, where the whole of life's stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave into a calmer current- -as I am now.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further, that, now and then, when I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to the gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adele played with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom, I climbed the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attic, and having reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and hill, and along dim sky-line - that then I longed for a power of vision which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen - that then I desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character, than was here within my reach.”
― Charlotte Bronte

“-But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know?
-I believe; I have faith: I am going to God.
-Where is God? What is God?
-My maker and yours, who will never destroy what He created. I rely implicitly on His power, and confide wholly in His goodness: I count the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to Him, reveal Him to me.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Into the hands of common sense I confided the matter. Common sense, however, was as chilled and bewildered as all my other faculties, and it was only under the spur of an inexorable necessity that she spasmodically executed her trust.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“One moment longer," whispered solitude and the summer moon, "stay with us: all is truly quiet now; for another quarter of an hour your presence will not be missed: the day's heat and bustle have tired you; enjoy these precious minutes.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Nor did I reflect that some herbs, "though scentless when entire, yield fragrance when they're bruised.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Unjust! - unjust!' said my reason, forced by the agonising stimulus into precocious though transitory power; and Resolve, equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable oppression - as running away, or, if that could not be effected, never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die.”
― Charlotte Bronte

“This harsh little man — this pitiless censor — gathers up all your poor scattered sins of vanity, your luckless chiffon of rose- color, your small fringe of a wreath, your small scrap of ribbon, your silly bit of lace, and calls you to account for the lot, and for each item. You are well habituated to be passed by as a shadow in Life's sunshine: it its a new thing to see one testily lifting his hand to screen his eyes, because you tease him with an obtrusive ray.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“It did not seem as if a prop were withdrawn, but rather as if a motive were gone: it was not the power to be tranquil which had failed me, but the reason for tranquility was no more.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“. . . at eighteen the true narrative of life is yet to be
commenced. Before that time we sit listening to a tale, a marvelous fiction, delightful sometimes, and sad sometimes, almost always unreal. Before that time our world is heroic, its inhabitants half-divine or semi-demon; its scenes are dreamscenes; darker woods and stranger hills, brighter skies, more dangerous waters, sweeter flowers, more tempting fruits, wider plains, drearier deserts, sunnier fields than are found in nature, overspread our enchanted globe. What a moon we gaze on before that time! How the trembling of our hearts at her aspect bears
witness to its unutterable beauty!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“To speak truth, sir, I don't understand you at all: I cannot keep up the conversation, because it has got out of my depth. Only one thing I know: you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that you regretted your own imperfection--one thing I can comprehend: you intimated that to have a sullied memory was a perpetual bane. It seems to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to become what you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you began with resolution to correct your thoughts and actions, you would in a few years have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections, to which you might revert with pleasure.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I knew,” he continued, “you would do me good in some way, at some time;—I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression and smile did not”—(again he stopped)—“did not” (he proceeded hastily) “strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing. People talk of natural sympathies; I have heard of good genii: there are grains of truth in the wildest fable. My cherished preserver, goodnight!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I must not forget that these coarsely-clad little peasants are of flesh and blood as good as the scions of the gentlest genealogy; and that the germs of native excellence, refinement, intelligence, kind feeling, are as likely to exist in their hearts as in those of the best born. My duty will be to develop these germs: surely I shall find some happiness in discharging that office.”
― Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

“If for instance the sentiment possessing for the moment the empire of our mind is sorrow, will not the genius sharpen the sorrow and the sorrow purify the genius? Together, will they not be like a cut diamond for which language is only the wax on which they stamp their imprint? I believe that genius, thus awakened, has no need to seek out details, that it scarcely pauses to reflect, that it never thinks of unity: I believe that the details come naturally without search by the poet, that inspiration takes the place of reflection and as for unity, I think there is no unity so perfect as that which results from a heart filled with a single idea...The nature of genius is related to that of instinct; it's operation is both simple and marvelous.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“If I spoke all I think on this point, if I gave my real opinion of some first-rate female characters in first-rate works, where should I be? Dead under a cairn of avenging stones in half an hour.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“I would always rather be happy than dignified..”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“This pure little drop from a pure little source was too sweet: it penetrated deep, and subdued the heart”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Meantime, let me ask myself one question--Which is better?--To have surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort--no struggle;--but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in France, Mr. Rochester's mistress; delirious with his love half my time--for he would--oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while. He DID love me--no one will ever love me so again. I shall never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace--for never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me--it is what no man besides will ever be.--But where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool's paradise at Marseilles--fevered with delusive bliss one hour- -suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next- -or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“As to the thoughts, they are elfish. Those eyes in the Evening Star you must have seen in a dream.”
― Charlotte Brontë , Jane Eyre

“For my part, I am almost contented just now, and very thankful. Gratitude is a divine emotion: it fills the heart, but not to bursting: it warms it, but not to fever. I like to taste leisurely of bliss: devoured in haste, I do not know its flavour.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley