Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“Heathcliff, indeed, stands unredeemed; never once swerving in his arrow-straight course to perdition”
― Charlotte Brontë

“My ear, too, felt the flow of currents; in what dales and depths I could not tell: but there were many hills beyond Hay, and doubtless many becks threading their passes. That evening calm betrayed alike the tinkle of the nearest streams, the sough of the most remote.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It is a crime against God to deny yourself love. It should be the 11th commandment.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Next morning I had the pleasure of encountering him; left a bullet in one of his poor etiolated arms, feeble as the wing of a chicken in the pip, and then thought I had done with the whole crew. But unluckily the Varens, six months before, had given me this filette Adèle, who, she affirmed, was my daughter; and perhaps she may be, though I see no proofs of such grim paternity written in her countenance:”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“Finalmente sei uscita" disse. "È tanto che aspetto e che sto in ascolto; non ho sentito rumore, e non ho sentito piangere: altri cinque minuti di questo silenzio di morte, e avrei forzato la porta come un ladro. Mi eviti, dunque? Ti chiudi a chiave e rimani a soffrire da sola? Avrei preferito che venissi ad accusarmi con violenza. Hai una natura appassionata: mi aspettavo una scena. Ero pronto ad affrontare un diluvio di calde lacrime; ma volevo che fossero versate sul mio petto: ora le ha accolte un pavimento insensibile, o il tuo fazzoletto zuppo. No, mi inganno: non hai pianto. Sei pallida, hai gli occhi spenti, ma non vedo traccia di lacrime. Immagino che il tuo cuore abbia pianto sangue.
'Dunque, Jane, non una parola di rimprovero? Nessuna parola amara, pungente? Nulla che ferisca i sentimenti o provochi collera? Rimani seduta in silenzio dove io ti ho messo a sedere, e mi guardi con occhi stanchi, passivi.
"Jane, non volevo ferirti così. Se l'uomo che aveva soltanto un'agnellina che amava come una figlia, che mangiava il suo pane e beveva dalla sua tazza e dormiva sul suo petto, l'avesse per uno strano errore sgozzata al mattatoio, non avrebbe sofferto per il suo sanguinoso sbaglio più di quanto io ora soffra per il mio. Mi perdonerai mai?"
Lo perdonai subito, in quel preciso istante, lettori.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Listen, then, Jane Eyre, to your sentence: tomorrow, place the glass before you, and draw in chalk your own picture, faithfully, without softening one defect; omit no harsh line, smooth away no displeasing irregularity; write under it, ‘Portrait of a Governess, disconnected, poor, and plain.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“When fate wronged me, I had not the wisdom to remain cool: I turned desperate; then I degenerated. Now, when any vicious simpleton excites my disgust by his paltry ribaldry, I cannot flatter myself that I am better than he: I am forced to confess that he and I are on a level.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Αυτό είναι άδικο!" μου έλεγε η λογική μου. "Άδικο, άδικο" μα γιατί υπέφερα έτσι; Γιατί;
Το "γιατί" το κατάλαβα έπειτα από καιρό, όταν πια οι μεγάλες αυτές μέρες είχαν γίνει μακρινό παρελθόν. Ήμουν μια παράτονη νότα μέσα στο Γκάτεσηντ Χωλ. Δεν έμοιαζα με κανένα από τα πρόσωπα που ζούσαν εκεί. Δε μ'αγαπούσαν, η αλήθεια είναι όμως πως δεν τους αγαπούσα κι εγω. Δεν ήταν υποχρεωμένοι να μεταχειρίζοντα με στοργή ένα πλάσμα, που ήταν ανίκανο να νιώσει συμπάθεια, έστω για ένα από τα πρόσωπα του σπιτιού.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Much pain, much fear, much struggle, would have troubled the very lines of your features, broken their regularity, would have harassed your nerves into the fever of habitual irritation you would have lost in health and cheerfulness, in grace and sweetness. Providence has protected and cultured you, not only for your own sake, but I believe for Graham’s. His star, too, was fortunate: to develop fully the best of his nature, a companion like you was needed: there you are, ready.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Young ladies have a remarkable way of letting you know that they think you a quiz without actually saying the words.”
― Charlotte Bront�, Jane Eyre

“«Mejor es comer hierbas con quienes nos aman que un buey con quienes nos odian».”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“He was resolved, he said, to return home to the Hollow that very afternoon. Mr. Yorke, instead of opposing, aided and abetted him. The chaise was sent for, though Mrs. Yorke declared the step would be his death. It came. Moore, little disposed to speak, made his purse do duty for his tongue. He expressed his gratitude to the servants and to Mrs. Horsfall by the chink of his coin. The latter personage approved and understood this language perfectly; it made amends for all previous contumacy. She and her patient parted the best friends in the world.”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Brontës Complete Works

“It is by compulsion that I do the slightest act not prompted by one thought, and by compulsion, that I notice anything alive or dead, which is not associated with one universal idea. I have a single wish, and my whole being and faculties are yearning to attain it. - pg 388”
― Charlotte Brontë

“It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you -- and besides, the Bible bids us return good for evil.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Erye

“Like heath that, in the wilderness, The wild wind whirls away.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Friends always forget those whom fortune forsakes,”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I know what I feel, and how averse are my inclinations to the bare thought of marriage. No one would take me for love; and I will not be regarded in the light of a mere money speculation. And I do not want a stranger — unsympathising, alien, different from me; I want my kindred: those with whom I have full fellow- feeling.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Laws and principals are not for times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Children can feel, but they cannot analyse their feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they know not how to express the result of the process in words.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“... she does not resent her grief. No; the weakness of that word would make it a lie. To her, what hurts becomes immediately embodied: she looks on it as a thing that can be attacked, worried down, torn in shreds. Scarcely a substance herself, she grapples to conflict with abstractions. Before calamity she is a tigress; she rends her woes, shivers them in convulsed abhorrence. Pain, for her, has no result in good; tears water no harvest of wisdom; on sickness, on death itself, she looks with the eye of a rebel. Wicked, perhaps, she is, but also she is strong: and her strength has conqueredBeauty, has overcome Grace, and bound both at her side, captives peerlessly fair, and docile as fair. Even in the uttermost frenzy of energy is each maenad movement royally, imperially, incedingly upborne. ... Fallen, insurgent, banished, she remembers the heaven where she rebelled.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Trup ostenit, picioarele - o rană,
Drumul e lung, munții pierduți în fum;
Amurgul cu posomorâtă geană
Orfanului sărman îi cade-n drum.

De ce mă sfâșie surghiun și plângeri,
Tot printre stânci, prin mlaștina ursuză?
Au inimi aspre oamenii; voi, îngeri
Orfanului îi sunteți călăuză.

Dar vântul serii liniștit adie,
Senin e cerul, stelele-s ivite;
În mila lui doar Dumnezeu mă știe,
Căci el e al orfanului părinte.

Chiar dac-ar fi și-n mlaștini aș rămâne,
Eu împăcat îmi voi primi destinul.
Tatăl din cer va fi mereu cu mine,
El îi va da orfanului alinul,

Acesta-i gândul ce mă-mbărbătează,
Deși părinții mei sunt azi morminte.
Cămin mi-e cerul, el îmi stă de pază,
Căci Domnul e-al orfanului părinte.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I smiled: I thought to myself Mr. Rochester is peculiar—he seems to forget that he pays me £30 per annum for receiving his orders. “The smile is very well,” said he, catching instantly the passing expression; “but speak too.” “I was thinking, sir, that very few masters would trouble themselves to inquire whether or not their paid subordinates were piqued and hurt by their orders.” “Paid subordinates! What! you are my paid subordinate, are you? Oh yes, I had forgotten the salary! Well then, on that mercenary ground, will you agree to let me hector a little?” “No, sir, not on that ground; but, on the ground that you did forget it, and that you care whether or not a dependent is comfortable in his dependency, I agree heartily.” “And will you consent to dispense with a great many conventional forms and phrases, without thinking that the omission arises from insolence?” “I am sure, sir, I should never mistake informality for insolence: one I rather like, the other nothing free-born would submit to, even for a salary.” “Humbug! Most things free-born will submit to anything for a salary;”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“Accade a volte che coloro i quali conducono vita ritirata e la cui esistenza si svolge nell’isolamento d’un collegio o di altro alloggio murato e vigilato, scompaiano a un tratto e per molto tempo dalla memoria dei loro amici, abitatori d’un mondo più libero.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Leading and improving! teaching and tutoring! bearing and forbearing! Pah! my husband is not to be my baby. I am not to set him his daily lesson and see that he learns it, and give him a sugar-plum if he is good, and a patient, pensive, pathetic lecture if he is bad. But it is like a tutor to talk of the "satisfaction of teaching." I suppose you think it the finest employment in the world. I don't. I reject it. Improving a husband! No. I shall insist upon my husband improving me, or else we part.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Instead of sitting down in a retired corner, or stealing away to her own room till the procession should be marshalled, according to her wont,”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain,—the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man—perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot believe that: 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

“Nature seemed to me benign and good; I thought she loved me, outcast as I was; and I, who from man could anticipate only mistrust, rejection, insult, clung to her with filial fondness.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Joe, do you seriously think all the wisdom in the world is lodged in male skulls?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“You see now how the case stands — do you not?” he continued. “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. To tell me that I had already a wife is empty mockery: you know now that I had but a hideous demon. I was wrong to attempt to deceive you; but I feared a stubbornness that exists in your character. I feared early instilled prejudice: I wanted to have you safe before hazarding confidences. This was cowardly: I should have appealed to your nobleness and magnanimity at first, as I do now — opened to you plainly my life of agony — described to you my hunger and thirst after a higher and worthier existence — shown to you, not my RESOLUTION (that word is weak), but my resistless BENT to love faithfully and well, where I am faithfully and well loved in return. Then I should have asked you to accept my pledge of fidelity and to give me yours. Jane — give it me now.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“exactamente lo mismo que hacía antaño,”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre