Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent, because remote from the nursery and kitchen; solemn, because it was known to be so seldom entered.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“People talk of natural sympathies; I have heard of good genii:– there are grains of truth in the wildest fable.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“was tempted to cease struggling with him—to rush down the torrent of his will into the gulf of his existence, and there lose my own. I was almost as hard beset by him now as I had been once before, in a different way, by another. I was a fool both times. To have yielded then would have been an error of principle; to have yielded now would have been an error of judgment.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“My feelings towards it can only be paralleled by that of a doting parent towards an idiot child.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Mark will have no youth; while he looks juvenile and blooming, he will be already middle-aged in mind. His body is now fourteen years of age, but his soul is already thirty.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“I must begin a new existence among strange faces and strange scenes.” “Of course: I told you you should.  I pass over the madness about parting from me.  You mean you must become a part of me.  As to the new existence, it is all right: you shall yet be my wife: I am not married.  You shall be Mrs. Rochester—both virtually and nominally.  I shall keep only to you so long as you and I live.  You shall go to a place I have in the south of France: a whitewashed villa on the shores of the Mediterranean.  There you shall live a happy, and guarded,”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“She had a turn for narrative, I for analysis; she liked to inform, I to question; so we got on swimmingly together, deriving much entertainment, if not much improvement, from our mutual intercourse.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Lumea poate sa inteleaga foarte bine ce inseamna sa mori din lipsa de hrana. Prea putini pot insa sa inteleaga sau sa simta odata cu tine ce inseamna sa innebunesti de prea multa singuratate. Se mai intampla sa vada cate un astfel de captiv, de multa vreme ingropat in singuratate, cum iese la lumina zilei nebun sau indobitocit,- cum l-au parasit mintile, cum simturile lui, la inceput inflamate, au trecut prin suferinte fara nume, pentru ca apoi sa cada in amortire- si iata un subiect prea complicat pentru mintile simple, prea abstract pentru intelegerea obisnuita.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“To me, he was in reality become no longer flesh, but marble; his eye was a cold, bright, blue gem; his tongue a speaking instrument—nothing more.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Mintea tulburată neliniștește perna.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“I am unhappy - very unhappy, for other things.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“There are certain natures of which the mutual influence is such, that the more they say, the more they have to say. For these out of association grows adhesion, and out of adhesion, amalgamation.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Algunas veces, durante un momento fugaz, creía vislumbrar una mirada, oír un tono de voz, ver una forma que anunciaba la realización de mi sueño, pero me desengañaba cada vez. No debes suponer que anhelaba la perfección, ni de intelecto ni de físico. Sólo anhelaba lo que fuera compatible conmigo.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“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.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“the readers of our era are less favoured.  But courage!  I will not pause either to accuse or repine.  I know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost; nor has Mammon gained power over either, to bind or slay: they will both assert their existence, their presence, their liberty and strength again one day.  Powerful angels, safe in heaven! they smile when sordid souls triumph, and feeble ones weep over their destruction.  Poetry destroyed?  Genius banished?  No!  Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the thought.  No; they not only live, but reign and redeem: and without their divine influence spread everywhere, you would be in hell—the hell of your own meanness. While”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Do as you please, sir.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Know, that in the course of your future life you will often find yourself elected the involuntary confidant of your acquaintances’ secrets: people will instinctively find out, as I have done, that it is not your forte to tell of yourself, but to listen while others talk of themselves; they will feel, too, that you listen with no malevolent scorn of their indiscretion, but with a kind of innate sympathy; not the less comforting and encouraging because it is very unobtrusive in its manifestations.” “How do you know?—how can you guess all this, sir?” “I know it well; therefore I proceed almost as freely as if I were writing my thoughts in a diary. ”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“while I breathe and think, I must love him.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Eliza still spoke little: she had evidently no time to talk.  I never saw a busier person than she seemed to be; yet it was difficult to say what she did: or rather, to discover any result of her diligence.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Well has Solomon said--'Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.'
I would not now have exchanged Lowood with all its privations, for Gateshead and its daily luxuries.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Breakfast was over, and none had breakfasted.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I honour endurance, perseverance, industry, talent; because these are the means by which men achieve great ends and mount to lofty eminence.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“From every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded: my share of the gaiety consisted […] in listening to the sound of the piano or the harp played below, to the passing to and fro of the butler and footman, to the jingling of glass and china as refreshments were handed, to the broken hum of conversation as the drawing-room door opened and closed.  When tired of this occupation, I would retire from the stairhead to the solitary and silent nursery […]. I then sat with my doll on my knee, till the fire got low, glancing round occasionally to make sure that nothing worse than myself haunted the shadowy room; and when the embers sank to a dull red, I undressed hastily, tugging at knots and strings as I best might, and sought shelter from cold and darkness in my crib.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I tell you I must go!’ I retorted, roused to something like passion. ‘Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? 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! – 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. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh; – it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal – as we are!”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey

“Não tem um olhar para mim: coisa cruel; um olhar terno ter-me-ia tornado feliz até amanhã de manhã. Esse olhar, não quis ele conceder-mo; foi-se embora. É estranho que a dor quase me sufoque por o olhar de um ser humano não ter encontrado o meu.”
― Charlotte Bronte

“but to-night I am resolved to be at ease; to dismiss what importunes, and recall what pleases. ”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“error
brought remorse, and you pronounced remorse the poison of
existence”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“-Da, spuse el, dupa ce ma privi cateva clipe, nu se poate nega, - e intr-adevar un chip care exprima hotararea-, e intiparita cu o penita de fier. A fost dureros?
-Foarte dureros, spusei sincera. Fa hotararea sa-si ridice mana de pe chipul meu, monsieur, nu-i mai pot indura scrijelirea.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“There's little joy in life for me,
And little terror in the grave;
I've lived the parting hour to see
Of one I would have died to save.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“O başucumda otururken öylesine güvende, öylesine sahip çıkılmış hissediyordum ki gidişi bana büyük bir acı verdi. Kapıyı arkasından kapattığında bütün oda karanlığa gömüldü ve kalbim adeta sıkıştı; tarifi mümkün olmayan bir üzüntü kapladı içimi.”
― Charlotte Brontë