Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“He intended me to go with him to India.” “Ah! here I reach the root of the matter. He wanted you to marry him?” “He asked me to marry him.” “That is a fiction—an impudent invention to vex me.” “I beg your pardon, it is the literal truth: he asked me more than once, and was as stiff about urging his point as ever you could be.” “Miss Eyre, I repeat it, you can leave me. How often am I to say the same thing? Why do you remain pertinaciously perched on my knee, when I have given you notice to quit?” “Because I am comfortable there.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“Kağıda dökülmeden önce, hayalimde canlandırdığım halleri çarpıcıydı ama elim hayal gücüm kadar becerikli değildi; ortaya çıkan şey, her seferinde kafamın içindeki görüntünün soluk bir tasviri olmuştu sadece.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“- No tienes por qué coger nuestros libros; dependes de nosotros, dice mamá; no tienes dinero, pues tu padre no te dejó nada, y deberías estar pidiendo limosna, no viviendo aquí con nosotros, hijos de un caballero, comiendo lo que comemos nosotros y llevando ropa comprada por nuestra querida madre. Yo te enseñaré a saquear mi biblioteca, porque es mía: toda la casa es mía, o lo será dentro de unos cuantos años. Ve y ponte al lado de la puerta, apartada del espejo y de las ventanas - John Reed”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I would not exchange this one little English girl for the Grand Turk’s whole seraglio, gazelle-eyes, houri forms, and all!” The Eastern allusion bit me again. “I’ll not stand you an inch in the stead of a seraglio,” I said; “so don’t consider me an equivalent for one. If you have a fancy for anything in that line, away with you, sir, to the bazaars of Stamboul without delay, and lay out in extensive slave-purchases some of that spare cash you seem at a loss to spend satisfactorily here.” “And what will you do, Janet, while I am bargaining for so many tons of flesh and such an assortment of black eyes?” “I’ll be preparing myself to go out as a missionary to preach liberty to them that are enslaved—your harem inmates amongst the rest. I’ll get admitted there, and I’ll stir up mutiny; and you, three-tailed bashaw as you are, sir, shall in a trice find yourself fettered amongst our hands: nor will I, for one, consent to cut your bonds till you have signed a charter, the most liberal that despot ever yet conferred.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The reader is requested to note a seeming contradiction in the two views which have been given of Graham Bretton—the public and private—the out-door and the in-door view. In the first, the public, he is shown oblivious of self; as modest in the display of his energies, as earnest in their exercise. In the second, the fireside picture, there is expressed consciousness of what he has and what he is; pleasure in homage, some recklessness in exciting, some vanity in receiving the same. Both portraits are correct.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“I thank my Maker, that, in the midst of judgment, he has remembered mercy. I humbly entreat my Redeemer to give me strength to lead henceforth a purer life than I have done hitherto!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“But let me not hate and despise myself too much for these feelings: I know them to be wrong—that is a great step gained; I shall strive to overcome them.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Câteodată semeni cu o pasăre ciudată închisă în colivie: acolo între gratii se află un prizonier plin de viață, neastâmpărat și hotărât; de-ar fi slobod, s-ar înălța până la nori.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Shirley flashed him back full payment for his spying gaze. She curled her lip and tossed her tresses. The glance she gave was at once explanatory and defiant. It said: 'I like Mr. Moore's society, and I dare you to
find fault with my taste.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It was not without a certain wild pleasure I ran before the wind, delivering my trouble of mind to the measureless air-torrent thundering through space”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“An’ so it is, Miss Grey, ‘a soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger.’ It isn’t only in them you speak to, but in yourself.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë: Masterpieces: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey,The Professor... (Bauer Classics)

“How will she bear the shocks and repulses, the humiliations and desolations, which books, and my own reason, tell me are prepared for all flesh?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“He will never love me; but he shall approve me; I will show him energies he has not yet seen, resources he has never suspected.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Solo es necesario que un hombre con talento sea sincero a la vez para que tenga momentos sublimes; puede tratarse de un fanático, de un idealista o de un tirano, pero en esos momentos es capaz de dominar y controlarte.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I was almost as hard beset by him now as I had been once before, in a different way, by another. I was a fool both times. To have yielded then would have been an error of principle; to have yielded now would have been an error of judgment.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“So don't make him the object of your fine feelings, your raptures, agonies, and so forth... be too self-respecting to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a gift is not wanted and would be despised.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“You—you strange, you almost unearthly thing!—I love as my own flesh. You—poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are—I entreat to accept me as a husband.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“You think too much of the love of human beings; you are too impulsive, too vehement: the sovereign hand that created your frame, and put life into it, has provided you with other resources than your feeble self, or than creatures feeble as you. Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is round us, for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are comissioned to guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognize our innocence, and God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness--to glory?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“So mortally did I fear the sin and weakness of presumption.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“With self-denial and economy now, and steady self-exertion by-and-by, and object in life need not fail you. Venture not to complain that such an object is too selfish, too limited, and lacks interest; be content to labout for independence until you have proved, by winning that prize, your right to look higher. But afterwards, is there nothing more for me in life - no true home - nothing to be dearer to me than myself, and by its paramount preciousness, to draw from me better things than I care to culture for myself only? Nothing, at whose feet I can willingly lay down the whole burden of human egotism, and gloriously take up the nobler charge of labouring and living for others?”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Do you think because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless?
“You - you strange - you almost unearthly thing! - I love you as my own flesh. You - poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“When thus gentle, Bessie seemed to me the best, prettiest, kindest being in the world; and I wished most intensely that she would always be so pleasant and amiable, and never push me about, or scold, or task me unreasonably, as she was too often wont to do.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“This was the sole flash-eliciting, truth-extorting, rencontre which ever occurred between me and Madame Beck: this short night-scene was never repeated. It did not one whit change her manner to me. I do not know that she revenged it. I do not know that she hated me the worse for my fell candour. I think she bucklered herself with the secret philosophy of her strong mind, and resolved to forget what it irked her to remember. I know that to the end of our mutual lives there occurred no repetition of, no allusion to, that fiery passage.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“You— you strange, you almost unearthly thing!—I love as my own flesh. You— poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are—I entreat to accept me as a husband.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“All the house was still; for I believe all, except St. John and myself, were now retired to rest. The one candle was dying out: the room was full of moonlight. My heart beat fast and thick: I heard its throb. Suddenly it stood still to an inexpressible feeling that thrilled it through, and passed at once to my head and extremities. The feeling was not like an electric shock, but it was quite as sharp, as strange, as startling: it acted on my senses as if their utmost activity hitherto had been but torpor, from which they were now summoned and forced to wake. They rose expectant: eye and ear waited while the flesh quivered on my bones.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It is in vain to say human beings are to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It is a happy thing that time quells the longings of vengeance and hushes the promptings of rage and aversion.  I had left this woman in bitterness and hate, and I came back to her now with no other emotion than a sort of ruth for her great sufferings, and a strong yearning to forget and forgive all injuries—to be reconciled and clasp hands in amity.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Posso vivere sola, se il rispetto per me stressa e le circostanze me lo richiedono. Non ho bisogno di vendere la mia anima per comprare la felicità. Ho un tesoro interiore che è nato con me e che può tenermi in vita qualora tutti i piaceri esteriori dovessero essermi negati, o mi si offrissero soltanto a un prezzo che non sono disposta a pagare.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre