Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“You would say you don't see it; at least I flatter myself I read as much in your eye (beware, bye-the-bye, what you express with that organ; I am quick at interpreting its language).”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“She is far better as she is,” concluded Adèle, after musing some time: “besides, she would get tired of living with only you in the moon. If I were mademoiselle, I would never consent to go with you.” “She has consented: she has pledged her word.” “But you can’t get her there: there is no road to the moon: it is all air; and neither you nor she can fly.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“„Cât de dureros e să zaci în asemenea clipe pe patul de suferință și să te afli în primejdie de moarte! E frumoasă lumea; îngrozitor ar fi să te vezi smulsă dintr-însa ca să te duci... cine știe unde!” Mintea mea făcu în clipa aceea primul efort de a înțelege tot ce mi se spusese despre cer și iad și pentru întâia oară se trase înapoi, speriată. Pentru prima dată, cercetând în jur, se văzu înconjurată de o prăpastie fără fund. Simțea și înțelegea numai starea în care se află: prezentul; tot restul nu era decât un nor fără formă, o genune nepătrunsă, și se-ncrâncenă la gândul de a fi aruncată în acel haos.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“He has told me I am formed for labour – not for love: which is true, no doubt. But, in my opinion, if I am not formed for love, it follows that I am not formed for marriage. Would it not be strange, Die, to be chained for life to a man who regarded one but as a useful tool?”
― Charlotte Brontë

“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 sun even rose, — at least a white disk, clear, tintless, and almost chill-looking as ice, — peeped over the dark crest of a hill, changed to silver the livid edge of the cloud above it, and looked solemnly down the whole length of the den…”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“Always try to avoid looking backward and forward if you want to be upward.”
― Charlotte Bronte

“In M. Emanuel's soul rankled a chronic suspicion that I knew both Greek and Latin. As monkeys are said to have the power of speech if they would but use it, and are reported to conceal this faculty in fear of its being turned to their detriment, so to me was ascribed a fund of knowledge which I was supposed criminally and craftily to conceal.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Había momentos en los que me desconcertaba el terror que me producía, ya que no tenía ninguna defensa posible contra sus amenazas (las de John Reed) ni sus malos tratos; los criados no querían ofender a su joven amo poniéndose de mi parte, y la señora Reed era sorda y ciega en este asunto: jamás lo vio pegarme ni lo oyó insultarme, a pesar de que ambas cosas ocurrían en su presencia de vez en cuando, aunque más frecuentemente a sus espaldas.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“domestic.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“–Y sin embargo tendrías el deber de soportarlo, si no lo pudieras evitar. Es una tontería y un síntoma de debilidad decir que no puedes soportar algo que el destino te manda para que lo soportes.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Pui prea mult preț pe dragostea oamenilor, ești prea impulsivă și prea neînduplecată. Mâna divină care ți-a zămislit trupul și i-a dat viață te-a înzestrat și cu alte puteri în afara slabei tale făpturi sau a altor ființe ca și tine de slabe. Dincolo de lumea asta și în afară de seminția omenească există o lume nevăzută și o împărțire a duhurilor; lumea aceea se află în jurul nostru, fiindcă ea este pretutindeni și acele duhuri veghează asupra noastră, pentru că li s-a dat menirea să ne păzească; și dacă murim în suferință și rușine, dacă batjocura ne lovește din toate părțile și ura ne strivește, îngerii ne văd chinul și ne recunosc nevinovăția (...), iar Dumnezeu așteaptă doar ca spiritul să se elibereze de trup, pentru a ne încununa cu o răsplată deplină. De ce să ne lăsăm așadar striviți de nenorocire, când viața-i atât de scurtă, iar moartea ne aduce în chip atât de neîndoielnic fericirea și slava?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“… it was not a wish of one who hopes to partake a pleasure if she could reach it- who feels fitted to shine in some bright distant sphere, could she but thither win her way; it was no yearning to attain, no hunger to taste; only the calm desire to look on a new thing.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Sir, I feel honest enough,” said Graham; and a genuine English blush covered his face with its warm witness of sincerity. “And yet,” he added, “I won’t deny that in some respects you accuse me justly. In your presence I have always had a thought which I dared not show you. I did truly regard you as the possessor of the most valuable thing the world owns for me. I wished for it: I tried for it. Sir, I ask for it now.” “John, you ask much.” “Very much, sir. It must come from your generosity, as a gift; from your justice, as a reward. I can never earn it.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Elupäevad on mu meelest liiga lühikesed, et neid võiks pillata vaenu õhutamiseks või eksimuste loetlemiseks.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I will be your neighbour, your nurse, your housekeeper. I find you lonely: I will be your companion – to read to you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to wait on you, to be eyes and hands to you. Cease to look so melancholy, my dear master; you shall not be left desolate, so long as I live.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?”
― Charlotte Brontë

“No - no - Jane; you must not go. No - I have touched you, heard you, felt the comfort of your presence - the sweetness of your consolation: I cannot give up these joys, I have little left in myself - I must have you.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Est-ce que je ne puis pas prendrie une seule de ces”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“He, I believe, never remembered that I had eyes in my head; much less a brain behind them.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Daylight began to forsake the red-room; it was past four o’clock, and the beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine. May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonised as in that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The teachers were fully occupied with packing up and making other necessary preparations for the departure of those girls who were fortunate enough to have friends and relations able and willing to remove them from the seat of contagion.  Many, already smitten, went home only to die: some died at the school, and were buried quietly and quickly, the nature of the malady forbidding delay. While disease had thus become an inhabitant of Lowood, and death its frequent visitor; while there was gloom and fear within its walls; 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.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Asomada”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“She was a big woman, and had long black hair: we could see it streaming against the flames as she stood. I witnessed, and several more witnessed, Mr. Rochester ascend through the sky-light on to the roof; we heard him call ‘Bertha!’ We saw him approach her; and then, ma’am, she yelled and gave a spring, and the next minute she lay smashed on the pavement.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“After a youth and manhood passed half in unutterable misery and half in dreary solitude, I have for the first time found what I can truly love—I have found you. You are my sympathy—my better self—my good angel—I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wraps my existence about you—and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one. “It was because I felt and knew this, that I resolved to marry you.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Caroline Helstone tenía solo dieciocho años, y a los dieciocho años la auténtica historia de la vida no ha comenzado. Antes de ese momento, nos sentamos y escuchamos un cuento, una maravillosa ficción, deliciosa a ratos, a ratos triste, casi siempre irreal. Antes de ese momento, nuestro mundo es heroico, sus habitantes semidioses o semidemonios, sus paisajes son escenarios de ensueño: bosques más oscuros y colinas más extrañas, cielos más fúlgidos, aguas más peligrosas, flores más dulces, frutos más tentadores, llanuras más amplias, desiertos más áridos y campos más soleados que los que se encuentran en la naturaleza se extienden por nuestro mundo encantado. ¡Qué luna contemplamos antes de ese momento! ¡De qué modo el estremecimiento que en nuestro corazón produce su aspecto atestigua su indescriptible belleza! En cuanto a nuestro sol, es un cielo ardiente: el mundo de los dioses.

En esa época, a los dieciocho años, acercándonos a los confines de esos sueños ilusorios vacíos, el país de las hadas queda a nuestra espalda, las orillas de la realidad se alzan ante nosotros. Esas orillas están lejos todavía; parecen tan azules, tan suaves y amables, que ansiamos alcanzarlas. A la luz del sol, vemos verdor bajo el azul celeste, como prados primaverales; vislumbramos líneas plateadas e imaginamos el oleaje de las aguas. Si pudiéramos alcanzar esa tierra, no pensaríamos más en la sed y el hambre, cuando lo cierto es que, antes de poder saborear la auténtica dicha, habremos de atravesar muchos desiertos, y a menudo el río, de la Muerte, o algún arroyo de la aflicción tan frío y casi tan negro como la Muerte. Todas las alegrías que da la vida han de ganarse, y solo los que han luchado por grandes premios saben lo mucho que eso cuesta. La sangre del corazón ha de adornar con rojas gemas la frente del combatiente antes de que la ciñan los laureles de la victoria.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“That is my wife, said he. Such is the sole conjugal embrace I am ever to know--such are the endearments which are to solace my leisure hours! And this is what I wished to have this young girl, who stands so grave and quiet at the mouth of hell, looking collectedly at the gambols of a demon. I wanted her just as a change after that fierce ragout. Wood and Briggs, look at the difference! Compare these clear eyes with the red balls yonder--this face with that mask--this form with that bulk; then judge me, priest of the Gospel and man of the law, and remember, with what judgement ye judge ye shall be judged.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter – often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter – in the eye.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre