The Life of Charlotte Brontë Quotes

“If we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love our friends for their sakes rather than for our own.”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“[Charlotte Brontë] once told her sisters that they were wrong - even morally wrong - in making their heroines beautiful as a matter of course. They replied that it was impossible to make a heroine interesting on any other terms. Her answer was, 'I will prove to you that you are wrong; I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“And besides, in the matter of friendship, I have observed that the disappointment here arises chiefly, not from liking our friends too well, or thinking of them too highly, but rather from an over-estimate of their liking for and opinion of us; and that if we guard ourselves with sufficient scrupulousness of care from error in this direction, and can be content, and even happy to give more affection than we receive -- can make just comparison of circumstances, and be severely accurate in drawing inferences thence, and never let self-love blind our eyes -- I think we may manage to get through life with consistency and constancy, unembittered by that misanthropy which springs from revulsions of feeling. All this sounds a little metaphysical, but it is good sense of if you consider it. The moral of it is, that if we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love our friends for their sakes rather than for our own; we must look at their truth to themselves, full as much as their truth to us. In the latter case, every wound to self-love would be a cause of coldness; in the former, only some painful change in the friend's character and disposition -- some fearful breach in his allegiance to his better self -- could alienate the heart.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“She continued her own studies, principally attending to German, and to Literature; and every Sunday she went alone to the German and English chapels. Her walks too were solitary, and principally taken in the allée défendue, where she was secure from intrusion. This solitude was a perilous luxury to one of her temperament; so liable as she was to morbid and acute mental suffering.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“A solitary life cherishes mere fancies until they become manias.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“but none—not the most skilful physician—can get at more than the outside of these things: the heart knows its own bitterness, and the frame its own poverty, and the mind its own struggles.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“As far as she could see, her life was ordained to be lonely, and she must subdue her nature to her life, and, if possible, bring the two into harmony. When she could employ herself in fiction, all was comparatively well. The characters were her companions in the quiet hours, which she spent utterly alone, unable often to stir out of doors for many days together.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“About Emily : "she never showed regard to any human creature; all her love was reserved for animals".”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“I read for the same reason that I ate or drank; because it was a real craving of nature. I wrote on the same principle as I spoke—out of the impulse and feelings of the mind; nor could I help it, for what came, came out, and there was the end of it. For as to self–conceit, that could not receive food from flattery, since to this hour, not half a dozen people in the world know that I have ever penned a line.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“It is not right to anticipate evil, and to be always looking forward with an apprehensive spirit; but I think grief is a two–edged sword, it cuts both ways; the memory of one loss is the anticipation of another.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“I remember looking on those two sad, earnest, shadowed faces, and wondering wether I could trace the mysterious expression which is said to foretell an early death. I had some fond superstitious hope that the column divided their fates from hers, who stood apart in the canvas, as in life she survived. I liked to see that the bright side of the pillar was towards her - that the light in the picture fell on her; I might more truly have sought in her presentment - nay, in her living face - for the sign of death - in her prime.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“when both were seated on a tuft of heather, in some high lonely place,”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Bronte

“I remember Miss Bronte once telling me that it was a saying round about Haworth, "Keep a stone in thy pocket seven year; turn it, and keep it seven year longer, that it may be ever ready to thine hand when thine enemy draws near.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“Charlotte said she could get on with any one who had a bump at the top of their heads (meaning conscientiousness). I found that I seldom differed from her, except that she was far too tolerant of stupid people, if they had a grain of kindness in them.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“Both were not mental but physical illnesses. She was well aware of this, and would ask how that mended matters, as the feeling was there all the same, and was not removed by knowing the cause. She had a larger religious toleration than a person would have who had never questioned, and the manner of recommending religion was always that of offering comfort, not fiercely enforcing a duty.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“Some of my greatest difficulties lie in things that would appear to you comparatively trivial. I find it so hard to repel the rude familiarity of children. I find it so difficult to ask either servants or mistress for anything I want, however much I want it. It is less pain for me to endure the greatest inconvenience than to go into the kitchen to request its removal. I am a fool. Heaven knows I cannot help it!”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“Yet these real, material dangers, when once past, leave in the mind the satisfaction of having struggled with difficulty, and overcome it. Strength, courage, and experience are their invariable results; whereas, I doubt whether suffering purely mental has any good result, unless it be to make us by comparison less sensitive to physical suffering …”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“What does it matter whether her husband dines in a dress–coat, or a market–coat, provided there be worth, and honesty, and a clean shirt underneath?”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“The loss of what we possess nearest and dearest to us in this world, produces an effect upon the character we search out what we have yet left that can support, and, when found, we cling to it with a hold of new–strung tenacity.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“Come what will, I cannot, when I write, think always of myself and of what is elegant and charming in femininity; it is not on those terms, or with such ideas, I ever took pen in hand: and if it is only on such terms my writing will be tolerated, I shall pass away from the public and trouble it no more. Out of obscurity I came, to obscurity I can easily return.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“She especially disliked the lowering of the standard by which to judge a work of fiction, if it proceeded from a feminine pen; and praise mingled with pseudo–gallant allusions to her sex, mortified her far more than actual blame.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“What, I sometimes ask, could I do without them? I have recourse to them as to friends; they shorten and cheer many an hour that would be too long and too desolate otherwise; even when my tired sight will not permit me to continue reading, it is pleasant to see them on the shelf, or on the table.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“I grieve to say that I possess no portrait of either of my sisters.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“Much of this nervous dread of encountering strangers I ascribed to the idea of her personal ugliness, which had been strongly impressed upon her imagination early in life, and which she exaggerated to herself in a remarkable manner. "I notice," said she, "that after a stranger has once looked at my face, he is careful not to let his eyes wander to that part of the room again!" A more untrue idea never entered into any one's head.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë

“Wild, strong hearts, and powerful minds, were hidden under an enforced propriety and regularity of demeanour and expression, just as their faces had been concealed by their father, under his stiff, unchanging mask.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Bronte