Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“This world is pleasant—it would be dreary to be called from it, and to have to go who knows where?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Now, here I lay again crushed and trodden on; and could I ever rise more? “Never,” I thought; and ardently I wished to die.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? 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?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“[…] Come, Shirley, we ought to go into church."

"Caroline, I will not; I will stay out here with my mother Eve, in these days called Nature. I love her—undying, mighty being! Heaven may have faded from her brow when she fell in paradise, but all that is glorious on earth shines there still. She is taking me to her bosom, and showing me her heart. Hush, Caroline! You will see her and feel as I do, if we are both silent.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“I walked fast through the room: I stopped, half suffocated with the thoughts that rose faster and faster than I could recieve, comprehend, settle them: thoughts of what might, could, would, and should be, and that ere long.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“[...]nothing sustained me; left to myself I abandoned myself and my tears watered the boards.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“How can I do that? If you are true, and your offer real, my only feelings to you must be gratitude and devotion – they cannot torture.”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey

“Human beings must love something…”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“he had always a word and sometimes a smile for me: when summoned by formal invitation to his presence, I was honoured by a cordiality of reception that made me feel I really possessed the power to amuse him, and that these evening conferences were sought as much for his pleasure as for my benefit. I, indeed, talked comparatively”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“You want capital - that’s all you want.’
‘Yes; but you might as well say that breath is all a dead man wants to live.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“He, I believe, never remembered that I had eyes in my head, much less a brain behind them.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Y supone una gran estrechez de miras por parte de algún ilustre congénere del sexo masculino opinar que la mujer debe limitarse a hacer repostería, tejer calcetines, tocar el piano y bordar bolsos. Condenarlas o reírse de ellas cuando pretenden aprender más cosas o dedicarse a tareas que se han declarado impropias de su sexo es fruto de la necedad.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Le sfumature del suo pensiero erano un collirio per gli occhi dello spirito; studiandole, la vista interiore diventava limpida e forte.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“–¿Y entonces? –Cuando te pones inquisitiva, Jane, me haces sonreír. Abres los ojos como un pájaro anhelante y realizas de vez en cuando algún pequeño movimiento, como si no te satisficiera lo que oyes. Antes de continuar, dime lo que quieres indicar con tus: «¿Y entonces?» Es una muletilla muy frecuente en ti.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“- Helen, ¿por qué te quedas con una niña que todos creen que es una embustera?

- ¿Todos, Jane? Vaya, sólo ochenta personas han oído que te llamasen así, y hay cientos de millones en el mundo.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Meantime, let me ask myself one question—Which is better?—To have surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort—no struggle;—but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in France, Mr. Rochester’s mistress; delirious with his love half my time—for he would—oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while. He did love me—no one will ever love me so again. I shall never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace—for never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me—it is what no man besides will ever be.—But where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool’s paradise at Marseilles—fevered with delusive bliss one hour—suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next—or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England? Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment. God directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the guidance!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter — the Eternity they have entered — where life is boundless in its joy duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fullness”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Of this contrast I thought not, however: gay instincts my nature had few; ball or opera I had never seen; and though often I had heard them described, and even wished to see them, it was not the wish of one who hopes to partake a pleasure if she could only reach it—who feels fitted to shine in some bright distant sphere, could she but thither win her way; it was no yearning to attain, no hunger to taste; only the calm desire to look on a new thing.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“You would say, I should have been superior to circumstances; so I should — so I should; but you see I was not. When fate wronged me, I had not the wisdom to remain cool: I turned desperate; then I degenerated. Now, when any vicious simpleton excites my disgust by his paltry ribaldry, I cannot flatter myself that I am better than he: I am forced to confess that he and I are on a level. I wish I had stood firm — God knows I do! Dread remorse when you are tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse is the poison of life.”
“Repentance is said to be its cure, sir.”
“It is not its cure. Reformation may be its cure; and I could reform — I have strength yet for that — if — but where is the use of thinking of it, hampered, burdened, cursed as I am? Besides, since happiness is irrevocably denied me, I have a right to get pleasure out of life: and I will get it, cost what it may.”
“Then you will degenerate still more, sir.”
“Possibly: yet why should I, if I can get sweet, fresh pleasure? And I may get it as sweet and fresh as the wild honey the bee gathers on the moor.”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Brontës: Complete Novels of Charlotte, Emily & Anne Brontë - All 8 Books in One Edition: Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall…

“If you can’t think of anything intelligent to say, don’t say anything at all.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should—so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“On the hilltop above me sat the rising moon; pale yet as a cloud, but brightening momently; she looked over Hay, which, half lost in trees, sent up a blue smoke from its few chimneys; it was yet a mile distant, but in the absolute hush I could hear plainly its thin murmurs of life. My ear, too, felt the flow of currents; in what dales and depths I could not tell: but there were many hills beyond Hay, and doubtless many becks threading their passes. That evening calm betrayed alike the tinkle of the nearest streams, the sough of the most remote.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Let him come, and let him laugh at the contrast between rumour and fact.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Don’t talk to me about her, John: I told you not to go near her; she is not worthy of notice; I do not choose that either you or your sisters should associate with her.” Here, leaning over the banister, I cried out suddenly, and without at all deliberating on my words— “They are not fit to associate with me.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“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”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“...la recompensa de la franqueza suele ser la afectación o la frialdad, o la interpretación burda, errónea y torpe del significado.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Do you never laugh, Miss Eyre?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“A loving eye is all the charm needed: to such you are handsome enough; or rather, your sternness has a power beyond beauty.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Je suis sa reine, mais il n’est pas mon roi. (I am his queen, but he is not my king)”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Think meanly of me, Lina,” said he. “Men, in general, are a sort of scum, very different to anything of which you have an idea; I make no pretension to be better than my fellows.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley