Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“he would have given me half his fortune, without demanding so much as a kiss in return”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I am not an angel,” I asserted; “and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me—for you will not get it, any more than I shall get it of you: which I do not at all anticipate.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Mr. Home himself offered me a handsome sum—thrice my present salary—if I would accept the office of companion to his daughter. I declined. I think I should have declined had I been poorer than I was, and with scantier fund of resource, more stinted narrowness of future prospect. I had not that vocation. I could teach; I could give lessons; but to be either a private governess or a companion was unnatural to me. Rather than fill the former post in any great house, I would deliberately have taken a housemaid’s place, bought a strong pair of gloves, swept bedrooms and staircases, and cleaned stoves and locks, in peace and independence. Rather than be a companion, I would have made shirts and starved.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“He says she’ll not be here long.” This phrase, uttered in my hearing yesterday, would have only conveyed the notion that she was about to be removed to Northumberland, to her own home. I should not have suspected that it meant she was dying; but I knew instantly now! It opened clear on my comprehension that Helen Burns was numbering her last days in this world, and that she was going to be taken to the region of spirits, if such region there were. I experienced a shock of horror, then a strong thrill of grief, then a desire—a necessity to see her; and I asked in what room she lay. “She is in Miss Temple’s room,” said the nurse. “May I go up and speak to her?” “Oh no, child! It is not likely; and now it is time for you to come in; you’ll catch the fever if you stop out when the dew is falling.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“The eagerness of the listener quickens the tongue of the narrator”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“That evening more firmly than ever fastened into my soul the conviction that Fate was of stone, and Hope a false idol - blind, bloodless, and of granite core.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Sacrifice! What do I sacrifice? Famine for food, expectation for content. To be privileged to put my arms round what I value--to press my lips to what I love--to repose on what I trust: is that to make a sacrifice? If so, then certainly I delight in sacrifice.”
― 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 talk 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.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I took a book—some Arabian tales; 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

“Su prescencia era mordaz, pero su ausencia parecería insípida por comparación.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Have I not found her friendless, and cold, and comfortless? Will I not guard, and cherish, and solace her?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Men jag ägde ännu livet, med alla dess krav och plågor och ansvar. Bördan måste bäras, behoven måste tillgodoses, lidandet uthärdas och ansvaret tas (s. 375).”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Vraiment! Vous valez peu de chose. You are not cast in an heroic mould; your courage will not avail to sustain you in solitude; it merely gives you the temerity to gaze with sang-froid at pictures of Cleopatra.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“And it is you, spirit--with will and energy, and virtue and purity--that I want, not alone with your brittle frame. ―”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“embrava dire, con lo sguardo triste e risoluto, se non con le labbra: "Ti amo, e so che tu hai un debole per me. Non è il timore del fallimento a impormi il silenzio. Se ti offrissi il mio cuore, credo che lo accetteresti. Ma il mio cuore è già offerto su un altare sacro: il fuoco già lo circonda. Presto non sarà che un sacrificio consumato".
Allora lei faceva il broncio come una bambina delusa; una nuvola pensosa ammorbidiva la sua radiosa vivacità; ritraeva in fretta la mano dalla sua, e si allontanava con una petulanza passeggera dalla sua presenza eroica e dolente. St. John, non vi è dubbio, avrebbe dato il mondo intero per seguirla, richiamarla, trattenerla, quando lei lo lasciava così [...].”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I am no bird, and no net ensnares me. I am a free human being with an independent will.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Você acha que, porque sou pobre, obscuro, simples e pequeno, sou sem alma e sem coração? Você pensa errado! - Tenho tanta alma quanto você, - e tanto coração! E se Deus tivesse me presenteado com alguma beleza e muita riqueza, eu deveria ter tornado tão difícil para você me deixar, como agora é para eu deixá-lo!”
― Charlotte Brontë

“... и когда в камине оставалась только кучка редеющей золы, я торопливо раздевалась, дергая изо всех сил шнурки и тесемки, и искала защиты от холода и мрака в своей кроватке. Я всегда клала с собой куклу: каждое человеческое существо должно что-нибудь любить, и, за неимением более достойных предметов для этого чувства, я находила радость в привязанности к облезлой, дешевой кукле, скорее похожей на маленькое огородное пугало.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“My rest might have been blissful enogh, only a sad heart broke it. It plained of its gaping wounds, its inward bleeding, its riven chords. I trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom; it bemoaned him with bitter pity; it demanded him with ceaseless longing; broken, it still quivered its shattered pinions in vain attempts to seek him.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Resulta absurdo decir que la calma satisface a los seres humanos. En sus vidas debe haber acción, y si no la tienen, acabarán buscándola. Millones de personas se ven condenadas a una vida más monótona que la mía, y son millones los que se rebelan en silencio contra ese destino. Nadie sabe cuántas rebeliones, al margen de las políticas, fermentan en la masa de seres vivos que habita la tierra. Se supone que las mujeres aspiran a la calma, pero lo cierto es que mujeres y hombres comparten los mismos sentimientos. Ellas, al igual que sus hermanos, también necesitan ejercitar sus facultades y un campo donde poder centrar sus esfuerzos. Las rígidas represiones y el estancamiento absoluto les causan el mismo sufrimiento que provocaría en los hombres, y resulta patético que esos compañeros más privilegiados las confinen en el hogar, a hornear pasteles o zurzir medias, a tocar el piano o bordar bolsas. Es injusto criticarlas o reírse de sus empeños por llegar más allá, por aprender cosas que la costumbre les ha negado, tachándolas de innecesarias para las de su sexo”
― Charlotte Brontë

“you desire to recommence your life, and to spend what remains to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal being.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“would fain exercise some better faculty than that of fierce speaking; fain find nourishment for some less fiendish feeling than that of sombre indignation. I took a book—some Arabian tales; 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: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“Bessie Lee must, I think, have been a girl of good natural capacity, for she was smart in all she did, and had a remarkable knack of narrative; so, at least, I judge from the impression made on me by her nursery tales. She was pretty too, if my recollections of her face and person are correct. I remember her as a slim young woman, with black hair, dark eyes, very nice features, and good, clear complexion; but she had a capricious and hasty temper, and indifferent ideas of principle or justice: still, such as she was, I preferred her to any one else at Gateshead Hall. It was the fifteenth”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“Η λύπηση είναι ένα συναίσθημα που, όταν προέρχεται απ΄ορισμένα άτομα είναι προσβλητική και πληγώνει , γιατί συνήθως την προσφέρουν άνθρωποι σκληροί και εγωιστές.”
― 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. As for you,—you'd forget me.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon! How all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection! Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought! I could not answer the ceaseless inward question - why I thus suffered; now at the distance of - I will not say how many years, I see it clearly.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I hold another creed; which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so 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

“Were you happy when you painted these pictures?’ asked Mr. Rochester presently.
‘I was absorbed, sir: yes, and I was happy. To paint them, in short, was to enjoy one of the keenest pleasures I have ever known.’
‘That is not saying much. Your pleasures, by your own account, have been few; but I daresay you did exist in a kind of artist’s dreamland while you blent and arranged these strange tints. Did you sit at them long each day?’
‘I had nothing else to do, because it was the vacation, and I sat at them from morning till noon, and from noon till night: the length of the midsummer days favoured my inclination to apply.’
‘And you felt self-satisfied with the result of your ardent labours?’
‘Far from it. I was tormented by the contrast between my idea and my handiwork: in each case I had imagined something which I was quite powerless to realise.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre

“You need watching, and watching over,” he pursued; “and it is well for you that I see this, and do my best to discharge both duties.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“He was talking, at the moment, to Louisa and Amy Eshton. I wondered to see them receive with calm that look which seemed to me so penetrating: I expected their eyes to fall, their colour to rise under it; yet I was glad when I found they were in no sense moved. “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.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition