Jane Eyre Quotes

“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 agised 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

“What necessity is there to dwell on the Past, when the Present is so much surer — the Future so much brighter?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I then ordered my brain to find a response, and quickly. It worked and worked faster. I felt the pulses throb in my head and temples; but for nearly an hour it worked in chaos, and no result came of its efforts. Feverish, with vain labour, I got up and took a turn in the room, undrew the curtain, noted a star or two, shivered with cold, and again crept to bed.

A kind fairy in my absence had surely dropped the required suggestion on my pillow, for as I lay down it came quietly and naturally to my mind.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“From every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded: my share of the gaiety consisted […] in listening to the sound of the piano or the harp played below, to the passing to and fro of the butler and footman, to the jingling of glass and china as refreshments were handed, to the broken hum of conversation as the drawing-room door opened and closed.  When tired of this occupation, I would retire from the stairhead to the solitary and silent nursery […]. I then sat with my doll on my knee, till the fire got low, glancing round occasionally to make sure that nothing worse than myself haunted the shadowy room; and when the embers sank to a dull red, I undressed hastily, tugging at knots and strings as I best might, and sought shelter from cold and darkness in my crib.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I mean the timorous or carping few who doubt the tendency of such books as Jane Eyre: in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against bigotry—that parent of crime—an insult to piety, that regent of God on earth. I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions; I would remind them of certain simple truths.

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“In genere si crede che le donne siano molto quiete: le donne invece provano gli stessi sentimenti degli uomini; hanno bisogno di esercitare le loro facoltà, di poter mettere alla prova le loro capacità come i loro fratelli; soffrono di troppe rigide restrizioni, di un'immobilità troppo assoluta esattamente come ne soffrirebbero gli uomini; è indice di una mentalità ristretta nei loro privilegiati compagni dire che dovrebbero limitarsi a cucinare e a fare la calza, a suonare il pianoforte e a ricamare borsette. E' insensato condannarle o schernirle se cercano di fare o imparare più di quanto l'abitudine abbia decretato necessario per il loro sesso.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I have a regard for her; and now that I know she is, in a sense, parentless- forsaken by mother and disowned by you, sir- I shall cling closer to her than before. How could I possibly prefer spoilt pet of a wealthy family, who would hate her governess as a nuisance, to a lonely little orphan, who leans towards her as a friend?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The furniture once appropriated to the lower apartments had from time to time been removed here, as fashions changed: and the imperfect light entering by their narrow casements showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut, looking, with their strange carvings of palm branches and cherubs’ heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs, high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated, on whose cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced embroideries, wrought by fingers that for two generations had been coffin-dust.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I stood, a wretched child enough, whispering to myself over and over again, “What shall I do?—what shall I do?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre