Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“- ¿Es tiránico?
- En absoluto; no es tiránico ni hipócrita: es sencillamente un hombre más generoso que bondadoso, más brillante que afable, más escrupulosamente equitativo que realmente justo, si entiende usted tan sutiles distinciones.
- ¡Oh sí! La bondad implica indulgencia, que él no tiene; la afabilidad, un corazón afectuoso, del que él carece; y la auténtica justicia es el resultado de la comprensión y la consideración, de las cuales bien puedo imaginar que mi viejo amigo de bronce está totalmente desprovisto.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“Când ești tânără, aspectul exterior al lucrurilor te impresionează adânc. De aceea mi-am închipuit că o nouă viață va începe de acum înainte, o viață care, pe lângă spini și trudă, îmi va aduce flori și bucurii. Toate forțele mele sufletești se treziră, ațâțate de această schimbare și de acest câmp nou deschis speranței; nu pot spune ce așteptam, dar năzuiam către ceva minunat, care poate n-avea să se petreacă îndată, nici într-o lună, ci într-un viitor pe care nu-l puteam hotărî.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what is your fate to be required to bear.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“aunt! have pity! Forgive me! I cannot endure it—let me be punished some other way! I shall be killed if—” “Silence! This violence is all most repulsive:” and so, no doubt, she felt it. I was a precocious actress in her eyes; she sincerely looked on me as a compound of virulent passions, mean spirit, and dangerous duplicity.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“You are no ruin sir – no lighting-struck tree: you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or not because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because your strength offers them so safe a prop.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly never allowed to cumber the earth. You had no right to be born; for you make no use of life.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“...el remordimiento es el veneno de la vida.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Mi-am cercetat sufletul, mi-am scrutat gândurile și sentimentele și m-am silit, cu toată energia, să readuc pe drumul sigur al bunului-simț pe aceea care rătăcise în pustiul fără de hotare și fără de poteci al imaginației.
Cheemată în fața propriei mele judecăți, Amintirea aduse mărturie în sprijinul speranțelor, dorințelor și simțămintelor născute în noaptea trecută și îmi lămuri de ce mă aflam de vreo cincisprezece zile încoace în starea asta; dar Rațiunea veni liniștită, în felul ei den, simplu, neprefăcut, să-mi prezinte lucrurile așa cum erau, să-mi arate că înlăturasem adevărul spre a mă hrăni cu visuri.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Rosamond Oliver [...]. Veniva in genere all'ora di catechismo tenuta dal signor Rivers; e temo che lo sguardo della visitatrice colpisse a fondo il cuore del giovane pastore. Sembrava che un istinto lo avvertisse del suo ingresso, anche quando non poteva vederla; quando guardava lontano dalla porta, se lei vi appariva, il viso gli si accendeva e si faceva luminoso, e i suoi lineamenti marmorei, sebbene rifiutassero di distendersi, mutavano indescrivibilmente; la loro stessa immobilità diventava espressione di un fervore represso, con più forza di quanto avrebbero fatto un movimento del viso o il balenare di uno sguardo.
Lei era certa consapevole del suo potere: né lui glielo nascondeva, perché non gli era possibile. Pur con tutto il suo cristiano stoicismo, quando lei gli andava vicino e gli si rivolgeva, e lo guardava in viso con un sorriso gaio, incoraggiante, tenero, la mano di lui tremava e gli occhi ardevano.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Some years after I had broken with the mother, she abandoned her child, and ran away to Italy with a musician or singer. I acknowledged no natural claim on Adèle’s part to be supported by me, nor do I now acknowledge any, for I am not her father; but hearing that she was quite destitute, I e’en took the poor thing out of the slime and mud of Paris, and transplanted it here, to grow up clean in the wholesome soil of an English country garden. Mrs. Fairfax found you to train it; but”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“La natura umana è uguale ovunque, sotto un tetto di paglia o sotto tegole d’oro. In tutti gli uomini vizio e virtù si mescolano in proporzione maggiore o minore, ma la proporzione non dipende dallo stato sociale; ho visto furfanti molto ricchi, furfanti molto poveri e altri che erano così e così, avendo realizzato il desiderio di Agar, ora potevano vivere con mezzi modesti ma sufficienti e furfanti restavano.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“Nothing refines like affection. Family jarring vulgarizes; family union elevates.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“Once more on the road to Thornfield, I felt like the messenger-pigeon flying home.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I must, then, repeat continually that we are for ever sundered:—and yet, while I breathe and think, I must love him.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Jane, I never meant to wound you thus. If the man who had but one little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter, that ate of his bread and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had by some mistake slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his bloody blunder more than I now rue mine. Will you ever forgive me?” Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: A Guide to Reading and Reflecting

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

“If a breath of air stirred, it made no sound here; for there was not a holly, not an evergreen to rustle, and the stripped hawthorn and hazel bushes were as still as the white worn stones which causewayed the middle of the path. Far and wide, on each side, there were only fields, where no cattle now browsed; and the little brown birds, which stirred occasionally at the hedge, looked like single russet leaves that had forgotten to drop.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“How people feel when they are returning home from an absence, long or short, I did not know: I had never experienced the sensation. I had known what it was to come back to Gateshead when a child after a long walk, to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy; and later, what is was to come back from church to Lowood, to long for a plenteous meal and a good fire, and to be unable to get either. Neither of these returnings was very pleasant or desirable: no magnet drew me to a given point., increasing in strength of attraction the nearer I came. The return to Thornfield was yet to be tried.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Nothing sustained me; left to myself I abandoned myself, and my tears watered the boards. I had meant to be so good, and to do so much.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“To speak truth, reader, there is no excellent beauty, no accomplished grace, no reliable refinement, without strength as excellent, as complete, as trustworthy. As well might you look for good fruit and blossom on a rootless and sapless tree, as for charms that will endure in a feeble and relaxed nature. For a little while the blooming semblance of beauty may flourish round weakness, but it cannot bear a blast; it soon fades, even in the serenest sunshine.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“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

“This world is pleasant—it would be dreary to be called from it, and to have to go who knows where?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Now, here I lay again crushed and trodden on; and could I ever rise more? “Never,” I thought; and ardently I wished to die.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton? - 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?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“[…] Come, Shirley, we ought to go into church."

"Caroline, I will not; I will stay out here with my mother Eve, in these days called Nature. I love her—undying, mighty being! Heaven may have faded from her brow when she fell in paradise, but all that is glorious on earth shines there still. She is taking me to her bosom, and showing me her heart. Hush, Caroline! You will see her and feel as I do, if we are both silent.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“I walked fast through the room: I stopped, half suffocated with the thoughts that rose faster and faster than I could recieve, comprehend, settle them: thoughts of what might, could, would, and should be, and that ere long.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“[...]nothing sustained me; left to myself I abandoned myself and my tears watered the boards.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“How can I do that? If you are true, and your offer real, my only feelings to you must be gratitude and devotion – they cannot torture.”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey