Charlotte Bronte Quotes

As far as my experience of matrimony goes -- I think it tends to draw you out of, and away from yourself.

I am no bird and no net ensnares me

It would not be wicked to love me." "It would to obey you.

But life is a battle: may we all be enabled to fight it well!

What you want to ignite in others must first burn inside yourself.

When his first-born was put into his arms, he could see that the boy had inherited his own eyes, as they once were - large, brilliant, and black.

I shall be thirty-one next birthday. My youth is gone like a dream; and very little use have I ever made of it. What have I done these last thirty years? Precious little.

Emily suffers no more from pain or weakness now. She will never suffer more in this world. She is gone after a hard, short conflict...Yes there is no Emily in time or on earth now. Yesterday we put her poor, wasted, mortal frame quietly under the chancel pavement. We are very calm at present. Why shoud we be otherwise? The anguish of seeing her suffer is over; the spectacle of the pains of death is gone by; the funeral day is past. We feel she is at peace. No need now to trouble for the hard frost and the keen wind. Emily does not feel them.

Adversity is a good school.

The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator.

I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal--as we are!

'My bride is here,' Rochester said , again drawing me to him, 'because my equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?'

Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at it for myself. We were born to strive and endure - you as well as I: do so. You will forget me before I forget you.

Silence is of different kinds, and breathes different meanings.

Reader, I married him.

It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

You — you strange — you almost unearthly thing! — I love as my own flesh. You — poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are — I entreat to accept me as a husband.

It is always the way of events in this life,...no sooner have you got settled in a pleasant resting place, than a voice calls out to you to rise and move on, for the hour of repose is expired.

Strange that grief should now almost choke me, because another human being's eye has failed to greet mine.

Good fortune opens the hand as well as the heart wonderfully; and to give somewhat when we have largely received, but to afford a vent to the unusual ebullition of the sensations.

I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.

On the contrary, I'm a universal patriot, if you could understand me rightly: my country is the world.

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.

Look twice before you leap.

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.

You are human and fallible.

A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play.

Well had Solomon said,'Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.

Such is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd's can only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness of the orb.

You are afraid of me, because I talk like a sphinx.

Memory in youth is active and easily impressible; in old age it is comparatively callous to new impressions, but still retains vividly those of earlier years.

The human heart has hidden treasures, In secret kept, in silence sealed.

We should acknowledge God merciful, but not always for us comprehensible.

I loved him very much - more than I could trust myself to say - more than words had power to express." - Jane Eyre

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!

I sat down and tried to rest. I could not; though I had been on foot all day, I could not now repose an instant; I was too much excited. A phase of my life was closing tonight, a new one opening tomorrow: impossible to slumber in the interval; I must watch feverishly while the change was being accomplished.

I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.

I only want an easy mind, sir; not crushed by crowded obligations.

Take my love. One day share my life. Be my dearest, first on earth.

Friends always forget those whom fortune forsakes.

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

The idea of seeing the sea - of being near it - watching its changes by sunrise, sunset, moonlight, and noonday - in calm, perhaps in storm - fills and satisfies my mind.

Amid the worry of a self- condemnatory soliloquy, his demeanour seemed grave, perhaps cold, both to me and his mother. And yet there was no bad feeling, no malice, no rancour, no littleness in his countenance, beautiful with a man's best beauty, even in its depression. When I placed his chair at the table, which I hastened to do, anticipating the servant, and when I handed him his tea, which I did with trembling care, he said: "Thank you, Lucy," in as kindly a tone of his full pleasant voice as ever my ear welcomed.

Great pains were taken to hide chains with flowers

Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you, - and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you!

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 grant an ugly woman is a blot on the fair face of creation; but as to the gentleman, let them be solicitous to possess only strength and valour: let their motto be:Hunt, shoot, and fight: the rest is not worth a flip.

It is a long way off, sir" "From what Jane?" "From England and from Thornfield: and ___" "Well?" "From you, sir