Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“In spirit, I believe we must have met. You no doubt were, at that hour, in unconscious sleep, Jane: perhaps your soul wandered from its cell to comfort mine.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Once I have fairly seized you, to have and to hold, I'll just -figuratively speaking - attach you to a chain like this' (touching his watchguard). 'Yes, bonny wee thing, I'll wear you in my bosom, lest my jewel I should tyne.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I did what human beings do instinctively when they are driven to utter extremity — looked for aid to one higher than man: the words "God help me!" burst involuntarily from my lips.”
― Charlotee Brontë

“(...)because Miss Temple has generally something to say which is newer than my own reflections; her language is singularly agreeable to me, and the information she communicates is often just what I wished to gain.”
“Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?”
“Yes, in a passive way: I make no effort; I follow as inclination guides me. There is no merit in such goodness.”
“A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so
they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should—so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.”
“You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older: as yet you are but a little untaught girl.”
“But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.”
“Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians and civilised nations disown it.” “How? I don’t understand.”
“It is not violence that best overcomes hate—nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury.”
“What then?”
“Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He acts; make His word your rule, and His conduct your example.”
“What does He say?”
“Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“My reader, I know, is one who would not thank me for an elaborate reproduction of poetic first impressions; and it is well, inasmuch as I had neither time nor mood to cherish such; arriving as I did late, on a dark, raw, and rainy evening, in a Babylon and a wilderness, of which the vastness and the strangeness tried to the utmost any powers of clear thought and steady self-possession with which, in the absence of more brilliant faculties, Nature might have gifted me.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead, you must be sure and not grieve: there is nothing to grieve about.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how he acts-make his world your rule, and his conduct your example.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I believe single women should have more to do—better chances of interesting and profitable occupation than they possess now. And”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“I kept my word. An hour or two sufficed to sketch my own portrait in crayons; and in less than a fortnight I had completed an ivory miniature of an imaginary Blanche Ingram. It looked a lovely face enough, and when compared with the real head in chalk, the contrast was as great as self-control could desire. I derived benefit from the task: it had kept my head and hands employed, and had given force and fixedness to the new impressions I wished to stamp indelibly on my heart.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there.  It contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures.  I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement. Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day.  At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon.  Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast. I”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I regained my couch, but never thought of sleep. Till morning dawned 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 by 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. Too feverish to rest, I rose as soon as day dawned.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Well, what did he want?"
"Merely to tell you that your uncle, Mr. Eyre of Madeira, is dead; that he has left you all his property, and that you are now rich--merely that--nothing more.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Now, when any vicious simpleton excites my disgust by his paltry ribaldry…”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should—so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It will atone - it will atone. Have I not found her friendless, and cold, and comfortless? Will I not guard, and cherish, and solace her? Is there not love in my heart, and constancy in my resolves? It will expiate at God's tribunal. I know my maker sanctions what I do. For the world's judgement - I wash my hands thereof. For man's opinion - I defy it.”
― Charlotte Bronte

“Is it really for love he is going to marry you?” She asked.
I was so hurt by her coldness and scepticism that the tears rose to my eyes.
“I am sorry to grieve you,” pursued the widow; “but you are so young, and so little acquainted with men, I wished to put you on your guard. It is an old saying that ‘all is not gold that glitters;’ and in this case I do fear there will be something found to be different to what either you or I expect.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I had already gained the door; but, reader, I walked back--walked back as determinedly as I had retreated. I knelt down by him; I turned his face from the cushion to me; I kissed his cheek; I smoothed his hair with my hand.

"God bless you, my dear master!" I said. "God keep you from harm and wrong--direct you, solace you--reward you well for your past kindness to me.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“I can so dearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while abhor the last”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It was the strain of a forsaken lady, who after bewailing the perfidy of her lover, calls her pride to her aid, desires her attendant to deck her in her brightest jewels and richest robes and resolves to meet the false one that night at the ball, and prove to him, by the gaiety of her demeanor, how little his desertion has affected her.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Her beauty, her pink cheeks, and golden curls, seemed to give delight to all who looked at her and to purchase indemnity for every fault”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“To pass its threshold was to return to stagnation; to cross the silent hall, to ascend the darksome staircase, to seek my own lonely little room, and then to meet tranquil Mrs. Fairfax, and spend the long winter evening with her, and her only, was to quell wholly the faint excitement wakened by my walk,—to slip again over my faculties the viewless fetters of an uniform and too still existence; of an existence whose very privileges of security and ease I was becoming incapable of appreciating. What good it would have done me at that time to have been tossed in the storms of an uncertain struggling life, and to have been taught by rough and bitter experience to long for the calm amidst which I now repined! Yes, just as much good as it would do a man tired of sitting still in a “too easy chair” to take a long walk: and just as natural was the wish to stir, under my circumstances, as it would be under his.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The rooks cawed, and blither birds sang; but nothing was so merry or so musical as my own rejoicing heart.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“She bit me. She worried me like a tigress, when Rochester got the knife from her...She sucked the blood: she said she'd drain my heart." Richard mason”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“No; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you: you shall yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand: your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“You know I am too English to get up a vehement friendship all at once.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“Hiring a mistress is the next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature, and always by position, inferior”
― Charlotee Brontë

“Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“A loving eye is all the charm needed[.]”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child,” he began, “especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?” “They go to hell,” was my ready and orthodox answer. “And what is hell? Can you tell me that?” “A pit full of fire.” “And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there forever?” “No, sir.” “What must you do to avoid it?” I deliberated a moment; my answer, when it did come, was objectionable: “I must keep in good health, and not die.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre