Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought not to consider poverty a crime.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I believe that creature is a changeling: she is a perfect cabinet of oddities.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“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.”
― Charlotte Bronte

“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

“I write because I cannot NOT write.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“I both wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester on the day which followed this sleepless night. I wanted to hear his voice again, yet feared to meet his eye.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“You know full well as I do the value of sisters' affections: There is nothing like it in this world.”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Professor

“At that time, I well remember whatever could excite - certain accidents of the weather, for instance, were almost dreaded by me, because they woke the being I was always lulling, and stirred up a craving cry I could not satisfy. One night a thunder-storm broke; a sort of hurricane shook us in our beds: the Catholics rose in panic and prayed to their saints. As for me, the tempest took hold of me with tyranny: I was roughly roused and obliged to live. I got up and dressed myself, and creeping outside the basement close by my bed, sat on its ledge, with my feet on the roof of a lower adjoining building. It was wet, it was wild, it was pitch dark. Within the dormitory they gathered round the night-lamp in consternation, praying loud. I could not go in: too resistless was the delight of staying with the wild hour, black and full of thunder, pealing out such an ode as language never delivered to man - too terribly glorious, the spectacle of clouds, split and pierced by white and blinding bolts.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Strange that grief should now almost choke me, because another human being's eye has failed to greet mine.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“And there is enchantment in the very hour I am now spending with you. Who can tell what a dark, dreary, hopeless life I have dragged on for months past? Doing nothing, expecting nothing; merging night in day; feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go out, of hunger when I forgot to eat: and then a ceaseless sorrow, and, at times, a very delirium of desire to behold my Jane again. Yes: for her restoration I longed, far more than for that of my lost sight. How can it be that Jane is with me, and says she loves me? Will she not depart as suddenly as she came? To-morrow, I fear I shall find her no more.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The truest love that ever heart
Felt at its kindled core,
Did through each vein, in quickened start,
The tide of being pour.

Her coming was my hope each day,
Her parting was my pain;
The chance that did her steps delay
Was ice in every vein.

I dreamed it would be nameless bliss,
As I loved, loved to be;
And to this object did I press
As blind as eagerly.

But wide as pathless was the space
That lay our lives between,
And dangerous as the foamy race
Of ocean-surges green.

And haunted as a robber-path
Through wilderness or wood;
For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath,
Between our spirits stood.

I dangers dared; I hindrance scorned;
I omens did defy:
Whatever menaced, harassed, warned,
I passed impetuous by.

On sped my rainbow, fast as light;
I flew as in a dream;
For glorious rose upon my sight
That child of Shower and Gleam.

Still bright on clouds of suffering dim
Shines that soft, solemn joy;
Nor care I now, how dense and grim
Disasters gather nigh.

I care not in this moment sweet,
Though all I have rushed o'er
Should come on pinion, strong and fleet,
Proclaiming vengeance sore:

Though haughty Hate should strike me down,
Right, bar approach to me,
And grinding Might, with furious frown,
Swear endless enmity.

My love has placed her little hand
With noble faith in mine,
And vowed that wedlock's sacred band
Our nature shall entwine.

My love has sworn, with sealing kiss,
With me to live--to die;
I have at last my nameless bliss.
As I love--loved am I!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“That to begin with; let respect be the foundation, affection the first floor, love the superstructure.”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Professor

“Remorse is the poison of life.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“We should acknowledge God merciful, but not always for us comprehensible.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“You examine me, Miss Eyre", said he. "Do you think me handsome?"
I should have deliberated, have replied to this question by something conventionally vague and polite; but the answer somehow slipped from my tongue before I was aware: "No, sir.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Human beings must love something, and, in the dearth of worthier objects
of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a
faded graven image, shabby as a miniature scarecrow. It puzzles me now
to remember with what absurd sincerity I doated on this little toy, half
fancying it alive and capable of sensation. I could not sleep unless it was
folded in my night-gown; and when it lay there safe and warm, I was
comparatively happy, believing it to be happy likewise.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily
Enjoy them as they fly!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Writers cannot choose their own mood: with them it is not always hide-tide, nor --thank Heaven!--always Storm.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“I stood lonely enough, but to that feeling of isolation I was accustomed: it did not oppress me much.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“One morning I fell to sketching a face: what sort of a face it was to be, I did not care or know. I took a soft black pencil, gave it a broad point, and worked away. Soon I had traced on the paper a broad and prominent forehead and a square lower outline of visage: that contour gave me pleasure; my fingers proceeded actively to fill it with features. Strongly-marked horizontal eyebrows must be traced under that brow; then followed, naturally, a well-defined nose, with a straight ridge and full nostrils; then a flexible-looking mouth, by no means narrow; then a firm chin, with a decided cleft down the middle of it: of course, some black whiskers were wanted, and some jetty hair, tufted on the temples, and waved above the forehead. Now for the eyes: I had left them to the last, because they required the most careful working. I drew them large; I shaped them well: the eyelashes I traced long and sombre; the irids lustrous and large. "Good! but not quite the thing," I thought, as I surveyed the effect: "they want more force and spirit;" and I wrought the shades blacker, that the lights might flash more brilliantly--a happy touch or two secured success. There, I had a friend's face under my gaze; and what did it signify that those young ladies turned their backs on me? I looked at it; I smiled at the speaking likeness: I was absorbed and content.

Is that a portrait of some one you know?" asked Eliza, who had approached me unnoticed. I responded that it was merely a fancy head, and hurried it beneath the other sheets. Of course, I lied: it was, in fact, a very faithful representation of Mr. Rochester. But what was that to her, or to any one but myself? Georgiana also advanced to look. The other drawings pleased her much, but she called that 'an ugly man.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“And what is hell? Can you tell me that?”
“A pit full of fire.”
“And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?”
“No, sir.”
“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 Bronte, Jane Eyre

“I would not be you for a kingdom.'

The remark was too naïve to rouse anger; I merely said -

'Very good.'

'And what would you give to be ME?' she inquired.

'Not a bad sixpence - strange as it may sound', I replied. 'You are but a poor creature.'

'You don't think so in your heart.'

'No; for in my heart you have not the outline of a place: I only occasionally turn you over in my brain.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“You had no right to be born; for you make no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person's strength.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“I looked, and had an acute pleasure in looking,--a precious yet poignant pleasure; pure gold, with a steely point of agony: a pleasure like what the thirst-perishing man might feel who knows the well to which he has crept is poisoned, yet stoops and drinks divine draughts nevertheless.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“But if I feel, may I never express?”
“Never!” declared Reason.

I groaned under her bitter sternness. Never - never - oh, hard word! This hag, this Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope; she could not rest unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in, and broken down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece of bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all life to despond. Reason might be right; yet no wonder we are glad at times to defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to Imagination - her soft, bright foe, our sweet Help, our divine Hope.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Little Jane's love would have been my best reward, without it, my heart is broken.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“In sunshine, in prosperity, the flowers are very well; but how many wet days are there in life—November seasons of disaster, when a man's hearth and home would be cold indeed, without the clear, cheering gleam of intellect.”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Professor

“You have rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that sort of face.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Self abandoned, relaxed and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, I felt the torrent come; to rise I had no will, to flee I had no strength.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre