Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“I wish he would come!  I wish he would come!” I exclaimed, seized with hypochondriac foreboding.  I had expected his arrival before tea; now it was dark: what could keep him?  Had an accident happened?  The event of last night again recurred to me.  I interpreted it as a warning of disaster.  I feared my hopes were too bright to be realised; and I had enjoyed so much bliss lately that I imagined my fortune had passed its meridian, and must now decline.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I am tired, sir.'
He looked at me for a minute.
'And a little depressed,' he said. What about? Tell me.'
'Nothing—nothing, sir. I am not depressed.'
'But I affirm that you are: so much depressed that a few more words would bring tears to your eyes—indeed, they are there now, shining and swimming; and a bead has slipped from the lash and fallen on to the flag. If I had time, and was not in mortal dread of some prating prig of a servent passing, I would know what all this means. Well, tonight I excuse you; but understand that so long as my visitors stay, I expect you to appear in the drawing room every evening; it is my wish; don't neglect it. Now go, and send Sophie for Adèle. Good-night, my—' He stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Erye

“Strange energy was in his voice, strange fire in his look.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“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

“I wanted to hear his voice again, yet feared to meet his eye.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Thoughtful for Winter’s future sorrow,
Its gloom and scarcity;
Prescient to-day, of want to-morrow,
Toiled quiet Memory.

’Tis she that from each transient pleasure
Extracts a lasting good;
’Tis she that finds, in summer, treasure
To serve for winter’s food.

And when Youth’s summer day is vanished,
And Age brings Winter’s stress,
Her stores, with hoarded sweets replenished,
Life’s evening hours will bless.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

“What will you do with your accomplishments? What, with the largest portion of your mind-- sentiments-- tastes?"
"Save them till they are wanted. They will keep.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

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

“It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Sweet-briar and southern-wood, jasmine, pink, and rose have long been yielding their evening sacrifice of incense: this new scent is neither of shrub nor flower; it is—I know it well—it is Mr. Rochester’s cigar.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I have none.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Jane accept me quickly. Say, Edward — give me my name — Edward — I will marry you.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“He is a good and a great man; but he forgets, pitilessly, the feelings and claims of little people, in pursuing his own large views. It is better, therefore, for the insignificant to keep out of his way, lest, in his progress, he should trample them down”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Because, he said, '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 come 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

“The longer we live, the more our experience widens; the less prone are we to judge our neighbor's conduct.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“You have not wept at all! I see a white cheek and a faded eye, but no trace of tears. I suppose then, your heart has been weeping blood?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Your station is in my heart.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Look twice before you leap.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you;”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I thought that a fairer era of life was beginning for me, one that was to have its flowers and pleasures as well as its thorns and toils.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Women are supposed to be calm generally: but women feel just as men feel...”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Sir, you have now given me my 'cadeau;' I am obliged to you: it is the meed teachers most covet-praise of their pupils' progress.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent phlegmatic order of people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate a remarkable piece of news without incurring the danger of having one’s ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation, and subsequently stunned by a torrent of wordy wonderment.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“To this crib I always took my doll; human beigns must love something, and, in the dearth of worthier objects of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded graven image, shabby as a miniature scarecrow”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“the mere pouring out of some portion of long accumulating, long pent-up pain into a vessel whence it could not again be diffused--had done me good. I was already solaced.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“And I shall see it again... in dreams, when I sleep by the Ganges; and again, in a more remote hour—when another slumber overcomes me, on the shore of a darker stream!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Life is too short to continue hating anyone for along time. We all have faults, but the time will come soon when we die, when our wickedness will pass away with our bodies, leaving only the pure flame of the spirit. That's why I never think of revenge, I never consider life unfair. I live in calm, looking forward to do the end.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The difference between her and me might be figured by that between the stately ship, cruising safe on smooth seas, with its full complement of crew, a captain gay and brave, and venturous and provident; and the life-boat, which most days of the year lies dry and solitary in an old dark boat-house, only putting to sea when the billows run high in rough weather, when cloud encounters water, when danger and death divide between them the rule of the great deep. No, the 'Louisa Bretton' never was out of harbour on such a night, and in such a scene: her crew could not conceive it; so the half-drowned life-boat man keeps his own counsel, and spins no yarns.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“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.”
― Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre

“It drew aside the window-curtain and looked out; perhaps it saw dawn approaching, for, taking the candle, it retreated to the door. Just at my bedside, the figure stopped: the fiery eyes glared upon me-she thrust up her candle close to my face, and extinguished it under my eyes. I was aware her lurid visage flamed over mine, and I lost consciousness: for the second time in my life-only the second time-I became insensible from terror.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre