Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“Vain favour! coming, like most other favours long deferred and often wished for, too late!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Do you think me, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“He is not to them what he is to me.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“One lies there," I thought, "who will soon be beyond the war of earthly elements. Whither will that spirit -- now struggling to quit its material tenement -- flit when at length released?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“These struggles with the natural character, the strong native bent of the heart, may seem futile and fruitless, but in the end they do good. They tend, however slightly, to give the actions, the conduct, that turn wich Reason approves, and whic Feeling, perharps, too ofter opposes: they certainly make a difference in the general tenor of a life, and certainly make a difference in the general tenor of a life, and enable it to be better regulated, mofe equable, quieter on the surface; and it is on the surface only the common gaze will fall.”
― Charlotte Bronte

“Es inútil decir que los seres humanos deberían estar satisfechos de llevar una vida tranquila; han de tener acción, y si no pueden encontrarla, la provocarán de un modo u otro.
(...)
Por lo general, se supone que las mujeres son muy tranquilas, pero la verdad es que sienten exactamente lo mismo que los hombres. Necesitan ejercitar sus facultades y el mismo margen de maniobra que sus hermanos varones, padecen cuando se las constriñe y se las inmoviliza como les sucede a los hombres, y sus más privilegiados congéneres del sexo masculino demuestran una gran estrechez mental cuando declaran que las mujeres deberían limitarse a preparar pudines y hacer calceta, tocar el piano y bordar mantelerías. Es una insensatez condenarlas o reírse de ellas cuando aspiran a aprender y hacer algo más que los convencionalismos proclaman como necesario para su su sexo".

Siglo XIX”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Liberty lends us her wings and Hope guides us by her star.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Youth is gone -- gone -- and will never come back: can't help it.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“One does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah! at hearing one has got a fortune; one begins to consider responsibilities, and to ponder business; on a base of steady satisfaction rise cetain grave cares, and we contain ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn brow.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“And who cares for imagination? Who does not think it a rather dangerous, senseless attribute, akin to weakness, perhaps partaking of frenzy - a disease rather than a gift of the mind?
Probably all think it so but those who possess, or fancy they possess it. To hear them speak, you would believe that their hearts would be cold if that elixir did not flow about them, that their eyes would be dim if that flame did not refine their vision, that they would be lonely if this strange companion abandoned them. You would suppose that it imparted some glad hope to spring, some fine charm to summer, some tranquil joy to autumn, some consolation to winter, which you do not feel. All illusion, of course; but the fanatics cling to their dream, and would not give it for gold.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“If Shirley were not an indolent, a reckless, an ignorant being, she would take a pen at such moments, or at least while the recollection of such moments was yet fresh on her spirit. She would seize, she would fix the apparition, tell the vision revealed. Had she a little more of the organ of acquisitiveness in her head, a little more of the love of property in her nature, she would take a good-sized sheet of paper and write plainly out, in her own queer but clear and legible hand, the story that has been narrated, the song that has been sung to her, and thus possess what she was enabled to create. But indolent she is, reckless she is, and most ignorant; for she does not know her dreams are rare, her feelings peculiar. She does not know, has never known, and will die without knowing, the full value of that spring whose bright fresh bubbling in her heart keeps it green.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“I am sure there is a future state; I believe God is good; I can resign my immortal part to Him without any misgiving. God is my father; God is my friend: I love Him; I believe He loves me.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“To speak truth, reader, there is no excellent beauty, no accomplished grace, no refinement, without strength as excellent, as complete, as trustworthy.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Estoy segura de que nunca confundiré la falta de buenas formas con la insolencia. Lo primero me parece bien; a lo segundo, ningún ser humano nacido libre debe someterse, ni siquiera por un sueldo.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman — almost a bride, was a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were desolate.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Belgium! name unromantic and unpoetic, yet name that whenever uttered has in my ear a sound, in my heart an echo, such as no other assemblage of syllables, however sweet or classic, can produce. Belgium! I repeat the word, now as I sit alone near midnight. It stirs my world of the past like a summons to resurrection; the graves unclose, the dead are raised; thoughts, feelings, memories that slept, are seen by me ascending from the clods--haloed most of them--but while I gaze on their vapoury forms, and strive to ascertain definitely their outline, the sound which wakened them dies, and they sink, each and all, like a light wreath of mist, absorbed in the mould, recalled to urns, resealed in monuments.”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Professor

“Are you in earnest? - Do you truly love me? - Do you sincerely wish me to be your wife?'
'I do; and if an oath is necessary to satisfy you, I swear it.'
'Then, sir, I will marry you.'
'Edward - my little wife!'
'Dear Edward!'
'Come to me - come to me entirely now,' said he: and added, in his deepest tone, speaking in my ear as his cheek was laid on mine, 'Make my happiness - I will make yours.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing. I abandoned it, and framed an humbler supplication; for change, stimulus; that petition, too, seemed swept off into vague space.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“He prizes me as a soldier would a good weapon, and that is all. [...] Can I receive from him the bridal ring, endure all the forms of love [...] and know that the spirit was quite absent? Can I bear the consciousness that every endearment he bestows is a sacrifice made on principle? No: such a martyrdom would be monstrous. I will never undergo it.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“With what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I know how soon youth would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss offered, but one dreg of shame, or one flavour of remorse were detected; and I do not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution - such is not my taste. I wish to foster, not to blight - to earn gratitude, not to wring tears of blood - no, nor of brine: my harvest must be in smiles, in endearments, in sweet.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Las personas reservadas muchas veces necesitan más que las expansivas hablar abiertamente de sus sentimientos y penas. Incluso el estoico más firme es humano, e irrumpir con valor en el mar silencioso de sus almas, a menudo supone hacerles el mayor favor”
― Charlotte Brönte

“مستر روتشيستر، إذا كنت قد عملتُ في أيما يوم من أيام حياتي عملاً صالحاً... إذا كنت قد راودتني في أيما يوم من أيام حياتي فكرة صالحة.. إذا كنتُ قد صلَّيتُ ذات مرة صلاة صادقة بريئة.. إذا كنتُ قد تمنَّيت أمنية فاضلة.. فإني أعتبر أني فُزتُ الآن بثواب ذلك كله. فلأن أكون زوجتك يعني عندي، أن أنعم بأوفر قسط من السعادة أستطيع بلوغه في هذه الدنيا.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I have to live, perhaps, till seventy years. As far as I know, I have good health. Half a century of existence may lie before me. How am I to occupy it? What am I to do to fill the interval of time which spreads between me and the grave?”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Descending, I went wandering whither chance might lead, in a still ecstasy of freedom and enjoyment; and I got— I know not how— I got into the heart of city life.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Coldest the remembrance of the wider ocean--wealth, caste, custom intervened between me and what I naturally and inevitably loved.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Yes Mrs Reed, to you i owe some fearful pangs of mental suffering, but i ought to forgive you, for you knew not what you did while rendering my heart strings, you thought you were only uprooting your bad propensities.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre / Les Hauts de Hurle-Vent / Agnes Grey

“The Lowood constraint still clings to you somewhat; controlling your features, muffling your voice, and restricting your limbs; and you fear in the presence of a man and a brother--or father, or master, or what you will--to smile too gaily, speak too freely, or move too quickly: but, in time, I think you will learn to be natural with me, as I find it impossible to be conventional with you; and then your looks and movements will have more vivacity and variety than they dare offer now. I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“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!”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Every good, true, vigorous feeling I have gathers impulsively round him. I know I must conceal my sentiments: I must smother hope; I must remember that he cannot care much for me. For when I say that I am of his kind, I do not mean that I have his force to influence, and his spell to attract; I mean only that I have certain tastes and feelings in common with him. I must, then, repeat continually that we are for ever sundered- and yet, while I breath and think, I must love him.”
― Charlotte Brontë