I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously revived, great and strong! He made me love him without looking at me.
Charlotte BronteOn the contrary, I'm a universal patriot, if you could understand me rightly: my country is the world.
Charlotte BronteBetter to try all things and find all empty, than to try nothing and leave your life a blank.
Charlotte BronteIt does good to no woman to be flattered [by a man] who does not intend to marry her; and it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if discovered and responded to, must lead, ignis-fatuus-like, into miry wilds whence there is no extrication.
Charlotte Bronte