Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“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

“Men and women too, must have a delusion of some sort: if not made ready to their hand, they will invent exaggeration for themselves.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“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 I am of his kind, I do not mean I have his force to influence, and his spell to attract: I mean only 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

“You ought to be aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs. Reed: she keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the poorhouse.” I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me: my very first recollections of existence included hints of the same kind. This reproach of my dependence had become a vague sing-song in my ear: very painful and crushing, but only half intelligible.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you'
Do you think I am an automation?-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, an
little, I am soulless and heartless?
You think wrong!-I have as much soul as you,-and
full of as much heart!
And if G-d had gifted me with some beauty and
much wealth,
I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, a
it is now for me to leave you.
I am not talking to you now through the medium o
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 G-d's feet, equal,-as we are!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Edition With Illustrations

“Non era stata mia intenzione guardarlo: chi mi legge sa quanto avessi combattuto per estirpare dal mio animo i germi dell'amore che vi avevo scoperto; e ora, appena lo avevo rivisto, i germi del mio amore risorgevano spontaneamente, vivi e forti. Anche senza guardarmi, mi costringeva ad amarlo.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“- Nunca - dijo, apretando los dientes, el señor Rochester - nunca ha habido nada tan frágil e indomable al mismo tiempo. ¡Si parece un junto en mis manos! - y me sacudió con la fuerza de sus brazos-. Podría doblarla con el dedo y el pulgar, ¿pero de qué me serviría doblarla, romperla, aplastarla? Piensa en esos ojos, en el ser resuelto, feroz y libre que mira con ellos, desafiándome con algo más que valor: con un triunfo inflexible. Haga lo que haga con la jaula, ¡no puedo alcanzar la criatura salvaje y bella de dentro! Si rompo la débil prisión, mi cólera sólo dejará en libertad a la cautiva. Podría conquistar la casa, pero su ocupante escaparía al cielo antes de poseer yo su morada de barro. Y es a ti, espíritu, con tu voluntad y energía, tu virtud y tu pureza, es a ti a quien quiero, no sólo tu débil cuerpo. Por ti misma, podrías acudir volando para anidar contra mi corazón, si quisieras. Tomada contra tu voluntad, te escaparás de mis brazos como una esencia, te esfumarás antes de que respire tu fragancia.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“You are cold, because you are alone: no contact strikes the fire from you that is in you. You are sick; because the best of feelings, the highest and the sweetest given to man, keeps far away from you. You are silly, because, suffer as you may, you will not beckon it to approach, nor will you stir one step to meet it where it waits you.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“…she surveyed the dusk moors, where bonfires were kindling: the summer evening was warm; the bell-music was joyous; the blue smoke of the fires looked soft; their red flames bright: above them, in the sky whence the sun had vanished, twinkled a silver point - the Star of Love.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“A vida me parece curta demais para ser gasta nutrindo animosidades ou recordando erros.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“remained an inmate of its walls, after its regeneration, for eight years: six as pupil, and two as teacher; and in both capacities I bear my testimony to its value and importance.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“Kauan luultaneen vielä yleisesti että vain ruumiilliset kärsimykset ansaitsevat myötätuntoa ja että kaikki muu on pelkkää kuvittelua.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“he took the cup from my hand, Adèle, thinking the moment propitious for making a request in my favour, cried out— “N’est-ce pas, monsieur, qu’il y a un cadeau pour Mademoiselle Eyre dans votre petit coffre?” “Who talks of cadeaux?” said he gruffly. “Did you expect a present, Miss Eyre? Are you fond of presents?” and he searched my face with eyes that I saw were dark, irate, and piercing. “I hardly know, sir; I have little experience of them: they are generally thought pleasant things.” “Generally thought? But what do you think?” “I should be obliged to take time, sir, before I could give you an answer worthy of your acceptance: a present has many faces to it, has it not? and one should consider all, before pronouncing an opinion as to its nature.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“Es una locura dejar que la llama de un amor secreto prenda entre ellos ya que, si se mantiene oculto sin poder expresarse, este sentimiento acaba devorando la vida de quien lo alimenta, y en el caso de que sea descubierto y correspondido, conduce inexorablemente a un lodazal del que es imposible salir.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Men rarely like such of their fellows as read their inward nature too clearly and truly. It is good for women, especially, to be endowed with a soft blindness; to have mild, dim eyes, that never penetrate below the surface of things—that take all for what it seems. Thousands, knowing this, keep their eyelids drooped on system; but the most downcast glance has its loophole, through which it can, on occasion, take its sentinel-survey of life.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way:”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I knew that he was my own uncle—my mother’s brother—that he had taken me when a parentless infant to his house; and that in his last moments he had required a promise of Mrs. Reed that she would rear and maintain me as one of her own children. Mrs. Reed probably considered she had kept this promise; and so she had, I dare say, as well as her nature would permit her; but how could she really like an interloper not of her race, and unconnected with her, after her husband’s death, by any tie?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“True, generous feeling is made small account of by some: but here were two natures rendered, the one intolerably acrid, the other despicably savourless for the want of it. Feeling without judgment is a washy draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Mr. Rochester is an amateur of the decided and eccentric: Grace is eccentric at least. What if a former caprice (a freak very possible to a nature so sudden and headstrong as his) has delivered him into her power, and she now exercises over his actions a secret influence, the result of his own indiscretion,”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“When I had time to consider Lucy’s manner and aspect, which was not often, I saw she was one who had to guard and not be guarded; to act and not be served: and this lot has, I imagine, helped her to an experience for which, if she live long enough to realize its full benefit, she may yet bless Providence.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“No soy un pájaro y no existe red que pueda atraparme. Soy un ser humano libre, con voluntad independiente, y voy a dejarlo”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Do you know where the wicked go after death?"
"They go to hell, was my ready and orthodox answer.
. . .
"What must you do to avoid it?"
I deliberated a moment; my answer, when it did come was objectionable: " I must keep in good health , and not die.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Vivo tranquila, esperando el final.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“M. Josef Emanuel stood by them while they played; but he had not the tact or influence of his kinsman, who, under similar circumstances, would certainly have compelled pupils of his to demean themselves with heroism and self-possession. M. Paul would have placed the hysteric débutantes between two fires—terror of the audience, and terror of himself—and would have inspired them with the courage of desperation, by making the latter terror incomparably the greater: M. Josef could not do this.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette