Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“Le donne sentono come gli uomini e come loro hanno bisogno di esercitare le loro facoltà, hanno bisogno d’un campo per i loro sforzi. Soffrono esattamente come gli uomini d’essere costrette entro limiti angusti, di condurre un’esistenza troppo monotona e stagnante”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Where is the use of doing me good in any way, beneficent spirit, when, at some fatal moment, you will again desert me—passing like a shadow, whither and how to me unknown, and for me remaining afterwards undiscoverable?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It would take a great deal to crush me”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Letters of Charlotte Brontë

“Onu çok seviyordum... İfade edemeyeceğim kadar çok... İfade etmeye kelimelerin gücü yetmeyecek kadar çok.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“It is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.”
-Helen Burns
Page# 73”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“He was the kind of person with whom I was likely ever to remain the neutral, passive thing he thought me.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“It is evening.  I have dismissed, with the fee of an orange, the little orphan who serves me as a handmaid. ”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“- Señor, yo pienso que usted no tiene derecho a darme órdenes, porque haya conocido más mundo o porque sea más viejo que yo. Esa superioridad que usted se adjudica dependerá de cómo haya usado su experiencia y su tiempo.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Mr. Rochester had sometimes read my unspoken thoughts with an acumen to me incomprehensible: in the present instance he took no notice of my abrupt vocal response; but he smiled at me with a certain smile he had of his own, and which he used but on rare occasions.  He seemed to think it too good for common purposes: it was the real sunshine of feeling—he shed it over me now.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Thus for the first, and perhaps only time in my life, I enjoyed the “giftie” of seeing myself as others see me. No need to dwell on the result. It brought a jar of discord, a pang of regret; it was not flattering, yet, after all, I ought to be thankful; it might have been worse.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“For shame! for shame!” cried the lady’s maid. “What shocking conduct, Miss Eyre, to strike a young gentleman, your benefactress’s son! Your young master.” “Master! How is he my master? Am I a servant?” “No; you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep. There, sit down, and think over your wickedness.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I believed he was naturally a man of better tendencies, higher principles, and purer tastes than such as circumstances had developed, education instilled, or destiny encouraged.  I thought there were excellent materials in him; though for the present they hung together somewhat spoiled and tangled.  I cannot deny that I grieved for his grief, whatever that was, and would have given much to assuage it.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I think you will learn to be natural with me, as I find it impossible to be conventional with you; and then your looks and movements will have more vivacity and variety than they dare offer now.  I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high. ”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I see, at intervals, the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It is not violence that best overcomes hate – nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“A strange, secret ecstacy steals through my veins at moments: I’ll not encourage—I’ll not remember it. I”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“Ändå bar Helen Burns just då armbindeln som utpekar "den slarviga". En knappt timme tidigare hade jag hört hur miss Scatcherd dömde henne till middag på vatten och bröd följande dag, därför att hon hade råkat göra en bläckplump i texten hon skrev. Sådan är den ofullkomliga mänskliga naturen! Sådana fläckar finns på ytan också hos den klaraste planet, och ögon som miss Scatcherds ser bara dess små brister och är blind för himlakroppens fulla glans (s. 76).”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“He is not to them what he is to me," I thought: "he is not of their kind. I believe he is of mine - I am sure he is - I feel akin to him - I understand the language of his countenance and movements: though rank and wealth sever us widely, I have something in my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him. Did I say, a few days since, that i had nothing to do with him but to receive my salary at his hands? Did I forbid myself to think of him in any other light than as a paymaster? Blasphemy against nature! Every good, true, vigorous feeling I have gathers impulsively round him. I know I must conceal my sentiments: I must smother hope; I must remember that he cannot care much for me. For when I say that I am of his kind, I do not mean that I have his force to influence, and his spell to attract; I mean only that I have certain tastes and feelings in common with him. I must, then, repeat continually that we are for ever sundered - and yet, while I breathe and think, I must love him.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I sat down and endeavoured to read. I could make no sense of the subject; my own thoughts swam always between me and the page I had usually found fascinating.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Meantime, let me ask myself one question—Which is better?—To have surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort—no struggle;—but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in France, Mr. Rochester’s mistress; delirious with his love half my time—for he would—oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while. He did love me—no one will ever love me so again. I shall never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace—for never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me—it is what no man besides will ever be.—But where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool’s paradise at Marseilles—fevered with delusive bliss one hour—suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next—or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“I believe — I daily find it proved — that we can get nothing in this world worth keeping, not so much as a principle or a conviction, except out of purifying flame or through strengthening peril. We err, we fall, we are humbled; then we walk more carefully. We greedily eat and drink poison out of the gilded cup of vice or from the beggar’s wallet of avarice. We are sickened, degraded; everything good in us rebels against us; our souls rise bitterly indignant against our bodies; there is a period of civil war; if the soul has strength, it conquers and rules thereafter.”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Brontës Complete Works

“»En cuanto a la boca, le gusta a veces reír, para hacer sentir a los demás lo que su alma experimenta, aunque me parece muy reservada cuando se trata de ciertos sentimientos”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I felt how, if I were his wife, this good man, pure as the deep sunless source, could soon kill me, without drawing from my veins a single drop of blood, or receiving on his own crystal conscience the faintest stain of crime”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“¿Quién podría culparme por ello? Mucha gente, sin duda; y también dirán que soy una insatisfecha. No podía evitarlo; mi naturaleza era inquieta de por sí, lo cual me conturbaba dolorosamente en ocasiones.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“while its rooms and passages steamed with hospital smells, the drug and the pastille striving vainly to overcome the effluvia of mortality, that bright May shone unclouded over the bold hills and beautiful woodland out of doors. Its garden, too, glowed with flowers:”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“her sight seems turned in, gone down into her heart: she is looking at what she can remember, I believe; not at what is really present. I wonder what sort of a girl she is—whether good or naughty.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Me encontraba tan feliz y contenta con este nuevo interés en la vida que dejé de echar de menor una familia. Mi mísero sino pareció expandirse, se llenaron los huecos de mi existencia, mi salud mejoró, aumenté de peso y de fuerzas.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The lady had the clearest voice imaginable: infinitely softer and more tuneful than could have been reasonably expected from forty years, and a form decidedly inclined to embonpoint. This”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“My dear boys, what are you thinking about?” exclaimed Mrs. Lynn. “I cannot possibly countenance any such inconsistent proceeding,” chimed in the Dowager Ingram. “Indeed, mama, but you can—and will,” pronounced the haughty voice of Blanche, as she turned round on the piano-stool; where till now she had sat silent, apparently examining sundry sheets of music. “I have a curiosity to hear my fortune told: therefore, Sam, order the beldame forward.” “My darling Blanche! recollect—” “I do—I recollect all you can suggest; and I must have my will—quick, Sam!” “Yes—yes—yes!” cried all the juveniles, both ladies and gentlemen. “Let her come—it will be excellent sport!” The footman still lingered. “She looks such a rough one,” said he. “Go!” ejaculated Miss Ingram, and the man went. Excitement instantly seized the whole party: a running fire of raillery and jests was proceeding when Sam returned. “She won’t come now,” said he. “She says it’s not her mission to appear before the ‘vulgar herd’ (them’s her words). I must show her into a room by herself, and then those who wish to consult her must go to her one by one.” “You see now, my queenly Blanche,” began Lady Ingram, “she encroaches. Be advised, my angel girl—and—” “Show her into the library, of course,” cut in the “angel girl.” “It is not my mission to listen to her before the vulgar herd either: I mean to have her all to myself. Is there a fire in the library?” “Yes, ma’am—but she looks such a tinkler.” “Cease that chatter, blockhead! and do my bidding.” Again Sam vanished; and mystery, animation, expectation rose to full flow once more. “She’s ready now,” said the footman, as he reappeared. “She wishes to know who will be her first visitor.” “I think I had better just look in upon her before any of the ladies go,” said Colonel Dent. “Tell her, Sam, a gentleman is coming.” Sam went and returned. “She says, sir, that she’ll have no gentlemen; they need not trouble themselves to come near her; nor,” he added, with difficulty suppressing a titter, “any ladies either, except the young, and single.” “By Jove, she has taste!” exclaimed Henry Lynn. Miss Ingram rose solemnly: “I go first,” she said, in a tone which might have befitted the leader of a forlorn hope, mounting a breach in the van of his men.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“I! - rich?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre