Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“I had silently feared St. John till now, because I had not understood him.  He had held me in awe, because he had held me in doubt.  How much of him was saint, how much mortal, I could not heretofore tell: but revelations were being made in this conference:”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“We know
that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence
most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before
us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His
worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His
infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence. I had risen
to my knees to pray”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Wicked and cruel boy!” I said. “You are like a murderer—you are like a slave-driver—your are like the Roman emperors!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The reason of my departure I cannot and ought not to explain: it would be useless, dangerous, and would sound incredible. No blame attached to me: I am as free from culpability as any one of you three. Miserable I am, and must be for a time; for the catastrophe which drove me from a house I had found a paradise was of a strange and direful nature. I observed but two points in planning my departure—speed, secrecy: to secure these, I had to leave behind me everything I possessed except a small parcel; which, in my hurry and trouble of mind, I forgot to take out”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“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

“Each human being has his share of rights. I suspect it would conduce to the happiness and welfare of all if each knew his allotment, and held to it as tenaciously as the martyr to his creed.”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Brontës Complete Works

“I cannot tell; Aunt Reed says if I have any, they must be a beggarly set: I should not like to go a-begging.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“All that cant about soldiers and parsons is most offensive in my ears. All ridiculous, irrational crying up of one class, whether the same be aristocrat or democrat - all howling down of another class, whether clerical or military - all exacting injustice to individuals, whether monarch or mendicant - is really sickening to me; all arraying of ranks against ranks, all party hatreds, all tyrannies disguised as liberties, I reject and wash my hands of. You think you are a philanthropist; you think you are an advocate of liberty; but I will tell you this - Mr. Hall, the parson of Nunnely, is a better friend both of man and freedom than Hiram Yorke, the reformer of Briarfield.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“You nurslings of Protestantism astonish me. You unguarded Englishwomen walk calmly amidst red-hot ploughshares and escape burning. I believe, if some of you were thrown into Nebuchadnezzar's hottest furnace you would issue forth untraversed by the smell of fire.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“In pain? Admit it. In love? Claim it. Life was too short to be anything but herself.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Terrible moment full of struggle, blackness, burning! Not a human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was loved; and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped; and I must renounce love and idol. One dear word compromised my intolerable duty--Depart!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Then, in the first place, do you agree with me that I have a right to be a little masterful, abrupt, perhaps exacting, sometimes, on the grounds I stated, namely, that I am old enough to be your father, and that I have battled through a varied experience with many men of many nations, and roamed over half the globe, while you have lived quietly with one set of people in one house?” “Do as you please, sir.” “That is no answer; or rather it is a very irritating, because a very evasive one. Reply clearly.” “I don’t think, sir, you have a right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“It is time some one undertook to rehumanise you,” said I, parting his thick and long uncut locks; “for I see you are being metamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a ‘faux air’ of Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you, that is certain: your hair reminds me of eagles’ feathers; whether your nails are grown like birds’ claws or not, I have not yet noticed.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I was willing to be his sister, on condition that he did not invite me to fill that relation to some future wife of his;”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Quanti sono coloro che amano davvero, o che almeno si sposano per amore, a questo mondo?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“I have told you, reader, that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester: I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me—because I might pass hours in his presence and he would never once turn his eyes in my direction—because I saw all his attentions appropriated by a great lady, who scorned to touch me with the hem of her robes as she passed; who, if ever her dark and imperious eye fell on me by chance, would withdraw it instantly as from an object too mean to merit observation. I could not unlove him, because I felt sure he would soon marry this very lady—because I read daily in her a proud security in his intentions respecting her—because I witnessed hourly in him a style of courtship which, if careless and choosing rather to be sought than to seek, was yet, in its very carelessness, captivating, and in its very pride, irresistible.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I ask you to pass through life at my side — to be my second self, and best earthly companion.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Let the world wag as it will, I’ve the philosopher’s stone in my waistcoat pocket, and the elixir of life in my cupboard;12 I’m independent of both Fate and Fortune!”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Professor

“You are no ruin, sir—no lighting-struck tree: you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because your strength offers them so safe a prop.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because – without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called "feminine" – we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we had noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true praise.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“I believe language to have been given us to make our meaning clear, not to wrap it in dishonest doubt.

Preface to "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë”
― Charlotte Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“Wicked and cruel boy!” I said.  “You are like a murderer—you are like a slave-driver—you are like the Roman emperors!”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars—a cage so peril, loneliness, an uncertain future, are not oppressive evils, so long as the frame is healthy and the faculties are employed; so long, especially, as Liberty lends us her wings, and Hope guides us by her star. I”
― Charlotte Brontë, Charlotte Brontë Complete Works: Jane Eyre, Villette & Shirley: Premium Classic Literature Edition

“Suddenly he was sobered: a vacant space appeared near Miss de Bassompierre; the circle surrounding her seemed about to dissolve. This movement was instantly caught by Graham’s eye—ever-vigilant, even while laughing; he rose, took his courage in both hands, crossed the room, and made the advantage his own. Dr. John, throughout his whole life, was a man of luck—a man of success. And why? Because he had the eye to see his opportunity, the heart to prompt to well-timed action, the nerve to consummate a perfect work. And no tyrant-passion dragged him back; no enthusiasms, no foibles encumbered his way. How well he looked at this very moment! When Paulina looked up as he reached her side, her glance mingled at once with an encountering glance, animated, yet modest; his colour, as he spoke to her, became half a blush, half a glow. He stood in her presence brave and bashful: subdued and unobtrusive, yet decided in his purpose and devoted in his ardour. I gathered all this by one view. I did not prolong my observation—time failed me, had inclination served: the night wore late; Ginevra and I ought already to have been in the Rue Fossette. I rose, and bade good-night to my godmother and M. de Bassompierre.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Lo único que eso significa es que tenemos ciertos gustos y sentimientos comunes. Debo, pues, repetirme hasta la saciedad que nunca estaremos juntos... Y reconocer que, mientras sea capaz de pensar y de respirar, no dejaré de amarle.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“No; I should not like to belong to poor people,” was my reply. “Not even if they were kind to you?” I shook my head: I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind; and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to be uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor women I saw sometimes nursing their children or washing their clothes at the cottage doors of the village of Gateshead: no, I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“Akıl olmadan sadece hissetmek pek güçsüz bir boşalımdır ama duygu katılmamış akıl da insanın yutamayacağı kadar acı ve tatsız bir lokmadır.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“I forgot that there were fields, woods, rivers, seas, an ever-changing sky outside the steam-dimmed lattice of this sick-chamber; I was almost content to forget it.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette