Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead, you must be sure and not grieve: there is nothing to grieve about. We all must die one day, and the illness which is removing me is not painful; it is gentle and gradual: my mind is at rest. I leave no one to regret me much: I have only a father; and he is lately married, and will not miss me. By dying young, I shall escape great sufferings. I had not qualities or talents to make my way very well in the world: I should have been continually at fault.” “But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know?” “I believe; I have faith: I am going to God.” “Where is God? What is God?” “My Maker and yours, who will never destroy what He created.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre Die Waise von Lowood

“I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that brow professes to say,—‘I can live alone, if self-respect and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure, born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld; or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.’ The forehead declares, ‘Reason sits firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild chasms. The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgment shall still have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote in every decision. Strong wind, earthquake-shock, and fire may pass by: but I shall follow the guiding of that still small voice which interprets the dictates of conscience.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“He carried his hat in his hand; his uncovered head, his face and fine brow were most handsome and manly. His features were not delicate, not slight like those of a woman, nor were they cold, frivolous, and feeble; though well cut, they were not so chiselled, so frittered away, as to lose in expression or significance what they gained in unmeaning symmetry. Much feeling spoke in them at times, and more sat silent in his eye.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“I, Lucy Snowe, plead guiltless of that curse, an overheated and discursive imagination; but, whenever, opening a room-door, i found her seated in a corner alone, her head in her pigmy hand, that room seemed to me not inhabited, but haunted.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude, and many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering than the brightest fire.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Mejor es la comida de legumbres donde hay amor, que de ternero cebado donde hay odio". Entonces no habria cambiado las privaciones de Lowood por todos los lujos de Gateshead”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It is right to look our life-accounts bravely in the face now and then, and settle them honestly. And he is a poor self-swindler who lies to himself while he reckons the items, and sets down under the head—happiness that which is misery. Call anguish—anguish, and despair—despair; write both down in strong characters with a resolute pen: you will the better pay your debt to Doom.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“By what instinct do you pretend to distinguish between a fallen seraph of the abyss and a messenger from the eternal throne, between a guide and a seducer”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“He paused for an answer: and what was I to say? Oh, for some good spirit to suggest a judicious and satisfactory response! Vain aspiration! The west wind whispered in the ivy round me; but no gentle Ariel borrowed its breath as a medium of speech: the birds sang in the tree-tops; but their song, however sweet, was inarticulate.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Birds began singing in brake and copse: birds were faithful to their mates; birds were emblems of love.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I opened the glass-door in the breakfast-room: the shrubbery was quite still: the black frost reigned, unbroken by sun or breeze, through the grounds. I covered my head and arms with the skirt of my frock, and went out to walk in a part of the plantation which was quite sequestrated; but I found no pleasure in the silent trees, the falling fir-cones, the congealed relics of autumn, russet leaves, swept by past winds in heaps, and now stiffened together. I leaned against a gate, and looked into an empty field where no sheep were feeding, where the short grass was nipped and blanched. It was a very grey day; a most opaque sky, “onding on snaw,” canopied all; thence flakes felt it intervals, which settled on the hard path and on the hoary lea without melting. 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

“Aceasta este natura imperfectă a omului; asemenea fete pot fi găsite pe suprafaţa celei mai luminoase planete; şi ochi precum cei ai domnişoarei Scatcherd pot vedea doar aceste defecte mărunte, căci sunt orbi la strălucirea deplină a astrului.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“La sua presenza, in una stanza, illuminava più del fuoco più ardente.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Ahora, de repente, recordaba que el mundo era enorme, y que todo un abanico de sensaciones, de esperanza y de temores, aguardaban a quienes tenían el valor de lanzarse a por todas y buscar la auténtica sabiduría de la vida sorteando sus peligros.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“to open my inward ear to a tale that was never ended - a tale my imagination created, and narrated continuously; quickened with all of incident, life, fire, feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual existence.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“You will never have green leaves more-never more see sea birds making nests and singing idyls in your boughs; the time of pleasure and love is over with you: but you are not desolate: each of you has a comrade to sympathize with him in his decay.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“You are a beauty, in my eyes; and a beauty just after the desire of my heart,—delicate and aërial.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“You are no ruin sir—no lighting-struck tree: you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because your strength offers them so safe a prop.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I said very little. I gave her only the crust and rind of my nature.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Votre place est dans mon coeur, et malheur à ceux qui voudraient vous insulter, maintenant ou plus tard.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Silence is of different kinds, and breathes different meanings; no words could inspire a pleasanter content that did M. Paul's wordlesss presence.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“For a handsome and not an unamiable-looking man, he repelled me exceedingly: there was no power in that smooth-skinned face of a full oval shape: no firmness in that aquiline nose and small cherry mouth; there was no thought on the low, even forehead; no command in that blank, brown eye.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Er ist nicht von ihrer Art. Ich glaube, er ist von meiner Art; ich bin mir sicher, dass er es ist - ich fühle mich ihm verwandt -, ich verstehe die Sprache seiner Miene und seiner Bewegungen; obwohl Rang und Vermögen eine tiefe Kluft zwischen uns schaffen, ist etwas in meinem Hirn und meinem Herzen, in meinem Blut und meinen Nerven, das mich im geistig gleich macht. Sagte ich vor wenigen Tagen, ich hätte nichts weiter mit ihm zu tun, als mein Salär von ihm zu erhalten? Habe ich mir verboten, ihm in jeglichem anderen Licht zu sehen als dem eines Brotherrn? Welche Blasphemie gegenüber der Menschennatur! Jedes gute, wahre kraftvolle Gefühl, das ich hege, sammelt sich aus freien Stücken um ihn herum. Ich weiß, dass ich meine Gefühle verbergen muss, jede Hoffnungs im Keim ersticken muss, nie vergessen darf, wie wenig ich ihm bedeute. Denn wenn ich sagen, ich sei von seiner Art, will ich damit nicht sagen, ich besäße seine Kraft der Beeinflussung oder seine Zaubermacht der Anziehung; ich will nur sagen, dass ich gewisse Vorlieben und Empfindungen mit ihm teile. Ich darf also nie vergessen, dass wir für alle Zeiten voneinander getrennt sind - und dennoch muss ich ihn lieben, so lange ich atme und denke.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I am going to her; and you, darling child, shall come to us;' and never stirred or spoke again; but continued that rapt, radiant gaze, till his pulse imperceptibly stopped, and his soul departed. None could have noticed the exact minute of his death, it was so entirely without struggle.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Wuthering Heights: Abridged and Retold, with Notes and Free Audiobook

“Here’s to Auld Lang Syne!” said the Count; holding the glancing cup on high. Then, looking at Mrs. Bretton.— “We twa ha’ paidlet i’ the burn Fra morning sun till dine, But seas between us braid ha’ roared Sin’ auld lane syne. “And surely ye’ll be your pint-stoup, And surely I’ll be mine; And we’ll taste a cup o’ kindness yet For auld lang syne.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“O frumusețe răsfrântă nu în culori delicate şi gene lungi, ci una a minții, a gesturilor, a strălucirii.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Nothing remained now but to take my freedom to my chamber, to carry it with me to my bed and see what I could make of it.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“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. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them; if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“While arranging my hair, I looked at my face in the glass, and felt it was no longer plain: there was hope in its aspect, and life in its colour; and my eyes seemed as if they had beheld the fount of fruition, and borrowed beams from the lustrous ripple. I had often been unwilling to look at my master, because I feared he could not be pleased at my look; but I was sure I might lift my face to his now, and not cool his affection by its expression. I took a plain but clean and light summer dress from my drawer and put it on: it seemed no attire had ever so well become me; because none had I ever worn in so blissful a mood.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre