Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“Am I hideous, Jane?” “Very, sir: you always were, you know.” “Humph! ”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“You are a strange child, Miss Jane,” she said, as she looked down at me; “a little roving, solitary thing: and you are going to school, I suppose?” I nodded. “And won’t you be sorry to leave poor Bessie?” “What does Bessie care for me? She is always scolding me.” “Because you’re such a queer, frightened, shy little thing. You should be bolder.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“This was very pleasant; there is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“You have been resident in my house three months?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you came from--?"

"From Lowood school, in -shire."

"Ah! a charitable concern. How long were you there?"

"Eight years."

"Eight years! you must be tenacious of life.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“You examine me, Miss Eyre," said he: "do you think me handsome?"
I should, if I had deliberated, have replied to this question by something conventionally vague and polite; but the answer somehow slipped from my tongue before I was aware:-"No, sir."
"Ah! By my word! there is something singular about," said he: "you have the air of a little nonnette; quaint, quiet, grave, and simple, as you sit with your hands before you, and your eyes generally bent on the carpet (except, by-the-by, when they are directed piercingly to my face; as just now, for instance); and when one asks you a question, or makes a remark to which you are obliged to reply, you rap out a round rejoinder, which, if not blunt, is at least brusque. What do you mean by it?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“a present has many faces to it, has it not? and one should consider all, before pronouncing an opinion as to its nature.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Je fais mon lit et mon ménage; I seek my dinner in a restaurant; my supper takes care, of itself; I pass days laborious and loveless; nights long and lonely; I am ferocious, and bearded and monkish; and nothing now living in this world loves me, except some old hearts worn like my own, and some few beings, impoverished, suffering, poor in purse and in spirit, whom the kingdoms of this world own not, but to whom a will and testament not to be disputed has bequeathed the kingdom of heaven.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“convenient”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“What you had left before I saw you, of course I do not know; but I counsel you to resist firmly every temptation which would incline you to look back: pursue your present career steadily, for some months at least”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. ”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“For once a hope was realized. I held in my hand a morsel of real solid joy: not a dream, not an image of the brain, not one of those shadowy chances imagination pictures, and on which humanity starves but cannot live”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“I rested my temples on the breast of temptation, and put my neck voluntarily under her yoke of flowers; I tasted her cup. The pillow was burning: there is an asp in the garland: the wine has a bitter taste: her promises are hollow- her offers false. I see and know all this.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I had now swallowed my tea. I was mightily refreshed by the beverage; as much so as a giant with wine: it gave new tone to my unstrung nerves, and enabled me to address this penetrating young judge steadily.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“In his presence I thoroughly lived; and he lived in mine.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Renewed hope followed renewed effort: It shone like the former for some weeks, then, like it, faded, flickered: Not a line, not a word reached me. When half a year wasted in vain expectancy, my hope died out, and then I felt dark indeed.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Your fortune is yet doubtful: when I examined your face, one trait contradicted another. Chance has meted you a measure of happiness: that I know. I knew it before I came here this evening. She has laid it carefully on one side for you. I saw her do it. It depends on yourself to stretch out your hand, and take it up: but whether you will do so, is the problem I study.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“What I felt that night, and what I did, I no more expected to feel and do, than to be lifted in a trance to the seventh heaven. Cold, reluctant, apprehensive, I had accepted a part to please another: ere long, warming, becoming interested, taking courage, I acted to please myself.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Some say there is enjoyment in looking back to painful experience past; but at this day I can scarcely bear to review the times to which I allude: the moral degradation, blent with physical suffering, from too distressing a recollection ever to be willingly dwelt on”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Georgiana added to her ‘How d’ye do?’ several commonplaces about my journey, the weather, and so on, uttered in rather a drawling tone: and accompanied by sundry side-glances that measured me from head to foot—now traversing the folds of my drab merino pelisse, and now lingering on the plain trimming of my cottage bonnet. Young ladies have a remarkable way of letting you know that they think you a ‘quiz’ without actually saying the words. A certain superciliousness of look, coolness of manner, nonchalance of tone, express fully their sentiments on the point, without committing them by any positive rudeness in word or deed.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Women are supposed to be very calm generally; but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. 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

“You will come some day to a craggy pass in the channel, where the whole of life's stream will be broken up into a 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..”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Well might I ask when he offered fraternity—“Dare I rely on you?” Well might he, doubtless knowing himself, withhold all pledge. True, he had bid me make my own experiments—tease and try him. Vain injunction! Privilege nominal and unavailable! Some women might use it! Nothing in my powers or instinct placed me amongst this brave band. Left alone, I was passive; repulsed, I withdrew; forgotten—my lips would not utter, nor my eyes dart a reminder. It seemed there had been an error somewhere in my calculations, and I wanted for time to disclose it.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Those trembling stars… they made my heart tremble, my veins glow when I viewed them.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“İnsan doğası işte böylesi kötü; en parlak yıldızların yüzeyinde bile lekeler vardır ve Bayan Scatcherd'ün gözleri gibi gözler, sadece o minicik lekeleri görür; yıldızın parlaklığı karşısında kördür.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“I had, ere this, looked on the thought of death with a quiet eye.”
― Charlotte Brontë

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

“What a smile!  I remember it now, and I know that it was the effluence of fine intellect, of true courage; it lit up her marked lineaments, her thin face, her sunken grey eye, like a reflection from the aspect of an angel.  Yet at that moment Helen Burns wore on her arm “the untidy badge;” scarcely an hour ago I had heard her condemned by Miss Scatcherd to a dinner of bread and water on the morrow because she had blotted an exercise in copying it out.  Such is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd’s can only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness of the orb. CHAPTER”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“You ask rather too many questions.  I have given you answers enough for the present: now I want to read.” But”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Humbug! Most things free-born will submit to anything for a salary; therefore, keep to yourself and don't venture on generalities of which you are intensely ignorant.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre