Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“It is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I and Adèle went to the table;”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I believe it was an inspiration rather than a temptation”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“very good looking, with black hair and eyes, and lively complexion.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“They clung to the purple moors behind and around their dwelling - to the hollow vale into which wound between fern-bank first, and then amongst a few of the wildest little pasture that ever bordered a wilderness of heath, or gave sustenance to a flock of grey moorland sheep, with their little mossy-faced lambs: - they clung to this scene, I say, with a perfect enthusiasm of attachment. I could comprehend the feeling, and share both its strength and truth. I saw the fascination of the locality. I felt the consecration of its loneliness: my eye feasted on the outline of swell and sweep - on the wild colouring communicated to ridge and dell by moss, by heath-bell, by flower-sprinkled turf, by brillant bracken, and mellow granite crag.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“brainless and vicious youth whom I had sometimes met in society, and had never thought of hating because I despised him so absolutely.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness—to glory?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Call anguish--anguish, and despair--despair; write both down in strong characters with a resolute pen: you will the better pay your debt to Doom.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“I have told you some of his faults, reader: as to his good points, he was one of the most honourable and capable men in Yorkshire; even those who disliked him were forced to respect him. He was much beloved by the poor, because he was thoroughly kind and very fatherly to them. To his workmen he was considerate and cordial. When he dismissed them from an occupation, he would try to set them on to something else, or, if that was impossible, help them to remove with their families to a district where work might possibly be had.”
― Charlotte Brontë, SHIRLEY

“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world; but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sun will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain, the impalpable principle of life and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature[.] [...] Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can do sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last; with this creed, revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low. I live in calm, looking to the end.”
― 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

“Don’t cling so tenaciously to ties of the flesh; save your constancy and ardour for an adequate cause; forbear to waste them on trite transient objects. ”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I replied that I did not quite know what my ailment had been, but that I had certainly suffered a good deal especially in mind. Further, on this subject, I did not consider it advisable to dwell, for the details of what I had undergone belonged to a portion of my existence in which I never expected my godmother to take a share. Into what a new region would such a confidence have led that hale, serene nature! 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

“I thank my Maker, that, in the midst of judgment, he has remembered mercy.  I humbly entreat my Redeemer to give me strength to lead henceforth a purer life than I have done hitherto!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Sometimes I half fall asleep when I am sitting alone and fancy things that have never happened.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I felt an inexpressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection and security, when I knew that there was a stranger in the room, an individual not belonging to Gateshead, and not related to Mrs. Reed. Turning from Bessie (though her presence was far less obnoxious to me than that of Abbot, for instance, would have been), I scrutinised the face of the gentleman: I knew him; it was Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary, sometimes called in by Mrs. Reed when the servants were ailing: for herself and the children she employed a physician.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I had not, it seems, the originality to chalk out a new road to shame and destruction, but trod the old track with stupid exactness not to deviate an inch from the beaten centre.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Postoje stanovite ličnosti koje uzajamno utječu jedna na drugu, i to tako da što više govore, to više imaju reći jedno drugome. Kod njih se iz združivanja razvija privrženost, a iz privrženosti sjedinjavanje.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“. . . they would neither hate nor envy us if they did not deem us so much happier than themselves.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“But what is so headstrong as youth—what so blind as inexperience?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Detesto l’ardire, l’ardire che appartiene all’arrogante e all’insensibile, ma amo l’audacia di un cuore forte, la passione di un sangue generoso.”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Professor

“The house cleared, I shut myself in, fastened the bolt that none might intrude, and proceeded—not to weep, not to mourn, I was yet too calm for that, but—mechanically to take off the wedding dress, and replace it by the stuff gown I had worn yesterday, as I thought, for the last time. I then sat down: I felt weak and tired. I leaned my arms on a table, and my head dropped on them. And now I thought: till now I had only heard, seen, moved—followed up and down where I was led or dragged—watched event rush on event, disclosure open beyond disclosure: but now, I thought.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“exercise”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“But there was ever in Mr. Rochester (so at least I thought) such a wealth of
the power of communicating happiness, that to taste but of the
crumbs he scattered to stray and stranger birds like me, was to
feast genially.”
― 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, Jane Eyre

“For me, the watches of that long night passed in ghastly wakefulness; strained by dread: such dread as children only can feel.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“It can never be, sir; it does not sound likely.  Human beings never enjoy complete happiness in this world.  I was not born for a different destiny to the rest of my species: to imagine such a lot befalling me is a fairy tale—a day-dream.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Then, learn from me not to judge by appearances: I am, as Miss Scatcherd said, slatternly; I seldom put, and never keep, things in order; I am careless; I forget rules; I read when I should learn my lessons; I have no method: and sometimes I say, like you cannot bear to be subjected to systematic arrangements. This is all very provoking to Miss Scatcherd, who is naturally neat, puncutal, and particular.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Wuthering Heights was hewn in a wild workshop, with simple tools, out of homely materials. The statuary found a granite block on a solitary moor: gazing thereon, he saw how from the crag might be elicited a head, savage, swart, sinister; a form moulded with at least one element of grandeur - power. He wrought with a rude chisel, and from no model but the vision of his meditations. With time and labour, the crag took human shape; and there it stands colossal, dark and frowning, half statue, half rock: in the former sense, terrible and goblin-like; in the latter, almost beautiful, for its colouring is of mellow grey, and moorland moss clothes it; and heath with its blooming bells and balmy flagrance, grown faithfully close to the giant's foot.”
― Charlotte Brontë