Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“I know how soon youth would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss offered, but one dreg of shame, or one flavour of remorse were detected; and I do not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution - such is not my taste. I wish to foster, not to blight - to earn gratitude, not to wring tears of blood - no, nor of brine: my harvest must be in smiles, in endearments, in sweet.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Las personas reservadas muchas veces necesitan más que las expansivas hablar abiertamente de sus sentimientos y penas. Incluso el estoico más firme es humano, e irrumpir con valor en el mar silencioso de sus almas, a menudo supone hacerles el mayor favor”
― Charlotte Brönte

“مستر روتشيستر، إذا كنت قد عملتُ في أيما يوم من أيام حياتي عملاً صالحاً... إذا كنت قد راودتني في أيما يوم من أيام حياتي فكرة صالحة.. إذا كنتُ قد صلَّيتُ ذات مرة صلاة صادقة بريئة.. إذا كنتُ قد تمنَّيت أمنية فاضلة.. فإني أعتبر أني فُزتُ الآن بثواب ذلك كله. فلأن أكون زوجتك يعني عندي، أن أنعم بأوفر قسط من السعادة أستطيع بلوغه في هذه الدنيا.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I have to live, perhaps, till seventy years. As far as I know, I have good health. Half a century of existence may lie before me. How am I to occupy it? What am I to do to fill the interval of time which spreads between me and the grave?”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Descending, I went wandering whither chance might lead, in a still ecstasy of freedom and enjoyment; and I got— I know not how— I got into the heart of city life.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Coldest the remembrance of the wider ocean--wealth, caste, custom intervened between me and what I naturally and inevitably loved.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Yes Mrs Reed, to you i owe some fearful pangs of mental suffering, but i ought to forgive you, for you knew not what you did while rendering my heart strings, you thought you were only uprooting your bad propensities.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre / Les Hauts de Hurle-Vent / Agnes Grey

“The Lowood constraint still clings to you somewhat; controlling your features, muffling your voice, and restricting your limbs; and you fear in the presence of a man and a brother--or father, or master, or what you will--to smile too gaily, speak too freely, or move too quickly: but, in time, I think you will learn to be natural with me, as I find it impossible to be conventional with you; and then your looks and movements will have more vivacity and variety than they dare offer now. I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“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? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Every good, true, vigorous feeling I have gathers impulsively round him. I know I must conceal my sentiments: I must smother hope; I must remember that he cannot care much for me. For when I say that I am of his kind, I do not mean that I have his force to influence, and his spell to attract; I mean only that I have certain tastes and feelings in common with him. I must, then, repeat continually that we are for ever sundered- and yet, while I breath and think, I must love him.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Now I wept: Helen Burns was not here; nothing sustained me; left to myself I abandoned myself, and my tears watered the boards.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Para ti, a vida tem de ser obrigatoriamente um cenário de mudança e distracção constante, caso contrário, o mundo é uma masmorra: tens de ser admirada, tens de ser cortejada, tens de ser bajulada… tens de ter música, tens de ter bailes, tens de ter companhia… caso contrário, definhas e morres. Será possível que não consigas arranjar maneira de te tornares independente de todas as iniciativas e de todas as vontades para além das que provêm de ti própria? Pega num dia, divide-o em partes, atribui a cada parte uma determinada tarefa; não deixes nem um quarto de hora, nem dez, nem cinco minutos que sejam por preencher, ocupa a totalidade do tempo; desempenha cada tarefa com método, com uma regularidade inflexível. O dia chegará ao fim quase sem dares por isso e não ficarás em dívida para com ninguém por te ter ajudado a livrares-te dum momento de ócio, não te verás obrigada a procurar companhia, a conversa, a simpatia, a tolerância de ninguém; viveste, em resumo, como qualquer criatura independente deve viver. (p.309)”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. ”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad — as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth — so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am quite insane — quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion...Appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines that only tend to elate and magnify few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ.”
― Currer Bell, Jane Eyre

“It is 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. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It is not saying too much; I know what I feel, and how averse are my inclinations to the bare thought of marriage. No one would take me for love; and I will not be regarded in the light of a mere money-speculation. And I do not want a stranger--unsympathizing, alien, different from me. I want my kindred--those with whom I have full fellow-feeling.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint; the friendly frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to him”
― Charlotte Bronte

“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.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“But I affirm that you are: so much depressed that a few more words would bring tears to your eyes-indeed, they are there now, shining and swimming; and a bead has slipped from the lash and fallen on the flag. If I had time, and was not in mortal dread of some prating prig of a servant passing, I would know what all this means. Well, to-night I excuse you; but understand that so long as my visitors stay, I expect you to appear in the drawing-room every evening; it is my wish; don't neglect it. Now go, and send Sophie for Adele. Good-night, my -' He stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“And yet there were fragments of truth here and there which satisfied the conscience, and gleams of light that cheered the vision.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Once I only saw her beauty, now I feel it.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you--especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you,--you'd forget me.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Night was come, and her planets were risen: a safe, still night; too serene for the companionship of fear. We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us: and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Missis was, she dared say, glad enough to get rid of such a tiresome, ill-conditioned child, who always looked as if she were watching everybody, and scheming plots underhand." Abbot, I think, gave me credit for being a sort of infantine Guy Fawkes.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Ogni atomo della sua carne mi è caro come la mia propria; l'amerei malata, l'amerei infelice.
Il suo animo è il mio tesoro e anche se si smarrisse continuerebbe ad esserlo. Se delirasse, le mie braccia la tratterrebbero, e non una camicia di forza; una sua stretta, anche se inconsapevole e feroce, mi alletterebbe e anche se lei mi si avventasse addosso furibonda come ha fatto stamane quella donna, l'accoglierei con un abbraccio energico sì, ma non meno tenero.
E quando fosse calma, non avrebbe altro guardiano, altra infermiera che me; saprei vegliarla con infinita tenerezza, anche se lei non potesse ricompensarmi con nessun sorriso e non mi stancherei di guardarla negli occhi anche se più non mi riconoscessero.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“إنَّه لمن حُسن الطالع أنَّ الزمان يُخمد التوق إلى الإنتقام، ويُسكت حوافز الغيظ والنفور.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I am the only being whose doom no tongue would ask, no eye would mourn.”
― Charlotte Bronte

“a wanderer’s repose or a sinner’s reformation should never depend on a fellow-creature.  Men and women die; philosophers falter in wisdom, and Christians in goodness: if any one you know has suffered and erred, let him look higher than his equals for strength to amend and solace to heal.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“His idea was still with me, because it was not a vapor sunshine could disperse, nor a sand-traced effigy storms could wash away; it was a name graven on a tablet, fated to last as long as the marble it inscribed. The craving to know what had become of him followed me everywhere.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre