Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“I could bend her with my finger and thumb: and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore, if I crushed her? Consider that eye: consider the resolute, wild, free thing looking out of it, defying me, with more than courage - with a stern triumph. Whatever I do with its cage, I cannot get at it - the savage, beautiful creature! If I tear, if I rend the slight prison, my outrage will only let the captive loose. Conqueror I might be of the house; but the inmate would escape to heaven before I could call myself possessor of its clay dwelling place. And it is you, spirit - with will and energy, and virtue and purity - that I want: not alone your brittle frame. Of yourself, you could come with soft flight and nestle against my heart, if you would: seized against your will you will elude the grasp like an essence - you will vanish ere I inhale your fragrance. Oh!”
― Charlotte Brontë

“I address only such as are worthy of the work, and competent to accomplish it.” “Those are few in number, and difficult to discover.” “You say truly; but when found, it is right to stir them up—to urge and exhort them to the effort—to show them what their gifts are, and why they were given—to speak Heaven’s message in their ear,—to offer them, direct from God, a place in the ranks of His chosen.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“Quel che è stato è stato. Non ho subito nessun male; perché dovrei serbare rancore?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“I will, in few words. You are cold, because you are alone: no contact strikes the fire from you that is in you. You are sick; because the best of feelings, the highest and the sweetest given to man, keeps far away from you.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“I dare say he thinks he has outwitted me cleverly. And this is the way men deal with women — still concealing danger from them — thinking, I suppose, to spare them pain. They imagined we little knew where they were to-night. We know they little conjectured where we were. Men, I believe, fancy women’s minds something like those of children. Now, that is a mistake.”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Brontës Complete Works

“And you,” I interrupted, “cannot at all imagine the craving I have for fraternal and sisterly love. I never had a home, I never had brothers or sisters; I must and will have them now: you are not reluctant to admit me and own me, are you?” “Jane, I will be your brother—my sisters will be your sisters—without stipulating for this sacrifice of your just rights.” “Brother? Yes; at the distance of a thousand leagues! Sisters? Yes; slaving amongst strangers! I, wealthy—gorged with gold I never earned and do not merit! You, penniless! Famous equality and fraternisation! Close union! Intimate attachment!” “But,”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“Because,” he said, “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.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“during that time he made me feel what severe punishment a good yet stern, a conscientious yet implacable man can inflict on one who has offended him. ”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Indeed it was: I had as good a right to die when my time came as he had: but I should bide that time, and not be hurried away in a suttee.” “Would I forgive him for the selfish idea, and prove my pardon by a reconciling kiss?” “No: I would rather be excused.” Here I heard myself apostrophized as a “hard little thing”; and it was added, “any other woman would have been melted to marrow at hearing such stanzas crooned in her praise.” I assured him I was naturally hard—very flinty, and that he would often find me so; and that, moreover, I was determined to show him divers rugged points in my character before the ensuing four weeks elapsed: he should know fully what sort of a bargain he had made, while there was yet time to rescind it.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“My time was now well and profitably filled up. What with teaching others and studying closely myself, I had hardly a spare moment.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Poor stupid dupe! Could not even self-interest make you wiser?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“You are well habituated to be passed by as a shadow in Life's sunshine: it is a new thing to see one testily lifting his hand to screen his eyes, because you tease him with an obtrusive ray.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Por lo general, se supone que las mujeres son muy tranquilas, pero la verdad es que sienten exactamente lo mismo que los hombres. Necesitan ejercitar sus facultades y el mismo rango de maniobra que sus hermanos varones, padecen cuando se las constriñe y se las inmoviliza como les sucede a los hombres, y sus más privilegiados congéneres del sexo masculino demuestran una gran estrechez mental cuando declaran que las mujeres deberían limitarse a preparar pudines y hacer calceta, tocar el piano y bordar mantelerías. Es una insensatez condenarlas o reírse de ellas cuando aspiran a aprender y hacer algo más que lo que los convencionalismos proclaman como necesario para su sexo.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Minha mente então fez seu primeiro esforço sério para lembrar o que lhe haviam ensinado a respeito do céu e do inferno. E pela primeira vez recuou, confusa. E pela primeira vez, olhando para trás, para os lados e para frente, viu ao seu redor um incomensurável abismo. Sentiu que havia apenas um ponto de apoio: o presente.”
― Charlotte Bronte

“Njegova prisutnost bila je veselija od najblistavije vatre. Ipak, i pored svega toga, nisam zaboravljala njegove mane; zacelo ne bih ni mogla, jer ih je on sam često ponavljao. Bio je gord, zajedljiv i grub prema nižima, a u dubini duše znala sam da je njegova velika dobrota prema meni išla na štetu drugih osoba. Bio je promenljive naravi i isto tako ćudljiv; više puta, kada bi me pozvao da mu čitam, zatekla bih ga u biblioteci samog, s pognutom glavom na prekrštenim rukama, i kad bi podigao pogled, neki mrzovoljan, skoro pakostan osmeh zamračio bi mu celo lice; pa ipak, verovala sam da su njegova ćudljivost, grubost i bivše moralne greške (kažem bivše, jer se sada, izgleda, popravio) poticale od nekog svirepog udarca koji mu je sudbina nanela. Verovala sam da je on po prirodi bio čovek s boljim namerama, uzvišenijim principima, s prefinjenijim ukusom, i da, s obzirom na obrazovanje, ni njegova sudbina ni njegova poznanstva nisu razvili u njemu ono što je dobro. Smatrala sam da je vrlo obdaren, iako su zasad te dobre osobine bile upropašćene i neuravnotežene. Ne mogu da poreknem da nisam saučestvovala u njegovoj tuzi, i učinila bih sve što mogu da je ublažim, pa ma kakva ona bila.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“¿Cree que puedo quedarme si no significo nada para usted? ¿Cree que soy un autómata?, ¿una máquina sin sentimientos? ¿Cree que puedo soportar que me quiten el pedazo de pan de la boca y la gota de agua vital del vaso? ¿Cree que porque soy pobre, fea, anodina y pequeña, carezco de alma y corazón? ¡Se equivoca! Tengo la misma alma que usted, y el mismo corazón. Y, si Dios me hubiera dotado de algo de belleza y una gran fortuna, le habría puesto tan difícil dejarme como lo es para mí dejarlo a usted. No le hablo con la voz de la costumbre o de las convenciones, ni siquiera con voz humana; ¡es mi espíritu el que se dirige al suyo, como si ambos hubiéramos muerto y estuviéramos a los pies de Dios, iguales, como lo somos!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has been a sign that you are alive.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Were I in her place, it seems to me I should wish the earth to open and swallow me up.”
― Charlotte Brontë, 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.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Mr. Rochester, I must leave you.” “For how long, Jane? For a few minutes, while you smooth your hair—which is somewhat dishevelled;”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Reason, and not Feeling, is my guide; my ambition is unlimited; my desire to rise higher, to do more than others, insatiable.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“...there is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The couple were thus revealed to me clearly: both removed their cloaks, and there was ‘the Varens,’ shining in satin and jewels,—my gifts of course,—and there was her companion in an officer’s uniform; and I knew him for a young roué of a vicomte—a brainless and vicious youth whom I had sometimes met in society, and had never thought of hating because I despised him so absolutely. On recognising him, the fang of the snake Jealousy was instantly broken; because at the same moment my love for Céline sank under an extinguisher. A woman who could betray me for such a rival was not worth contending for; she deserved only scorn; less, however, than I, who had been her dupe.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Sir,' I answered, 'a wanderer's repose or a sinner's reformation should never depend on a fellow creature.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Durante los quince años siguientes a su muerte, solo un túmulo de hierba la cubría. Ahora marca el lugar una lápida de mármol gris, inscrito con su nombre y la palabra Resurgam.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“There are human tempers, bland, glowing, and genial, within whose influence it is as good for the poor in spirit to live, as it is for the feeble in frame to bask in the glow of noon. Of the number of these choice natures were certainly both Dr. Bretton’s and his mother’s. They liked to communicate happiness, as some like to occasion misery: they did it instinctively; without fuss, and apparently with little consciousness; the means to give pleasure rose spontaneously in their minds. Every day while I stayed with them, some little plan was proposed which resulted in beneficial enjoyment. Fully occupied as was Dr. John’s time, he still made it in his way to accompany us in each brief excursion. I can hardly tell how he managed his engagements; they were numerous, yet by dint of system, he classed them in an order which left him a daily period of liberty. I often saw him hard-worked, yet seldom over-driven, and never irritated, confused, or oppressed. What he did was accomplished with the ease and grace of all-sufficing strength; with the bountiful cheerfulness of high and unbroken energies. Under his guidance I saw, in that one happy fortnight, more of Villette, its environs, and its inhabitants, than I had seen in the whole eight months of my previous residence. He took me to places of interest in the town, of whose names I had not before so much as heard; with willingness and spirit he communicates much noteworthy information.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“I stood on the rug and warmed my hands, which were rather cold with sitting at a distance from the drawing-room fire. I felt now as composed as ever I did in my life: there was nothing indeed in the gipsy’s appearance to trouble one’s calm. She shut her book and slowly looked up; her hat-brim partially shaded her face, yet I could see, as she raised it, that it was a strange one. It looked all brown and black: elf-locks bristled out from beneath a white band which passed under her chin, and came half over her cheeks, or rather jaws: her eye confronted me at once, with a bold and direct gaze. “Well, and you want your fortune told?” she said, in a voice as decided as her glance, as harsh as her features. “I don’t care about it, mother; you may please yourself: but I ought to warn you, I have no faith.” “It’s like your impudence to say so: I expected it of you; I heard it in your step as you crossed the threshold.” “Did you? You’ve a quick ear.” “I have; and a quick eye and a quick brain.” “You need them all in your trade.” “I do; especially when I’ve customers like you to deal with. Why don’t you tremble?” “I’m not cold.” “Why don’t you turn pale?” “I am not sick.” “Why don’t you consult my art?” “I’m not silly.” The old crone “nichered” a laugh under her bonnet and bandage; she then drew out a short black pipe, and lighting it began to smoke.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“Başkaları beni sevmezken yaşamaktansa ölmeyi tercih ederim. Yalnızlığa ve nefret edilmeye dayanamam, Helen. İnan bana senin, Bayan Temple'ın ya da gerçekten sevdiğim başka birinin beni sevmemesindense kolumun kırılmasına, azgın bir boğanın boynuzları arasında kalmaya ya da çifte atan bir atın arkasında durup göğsüme darbe almaya seve seve razı olurum...”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Pity!" he said, and sighed and paused. "It is always the way of events in this life," he continued presently: "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.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“It is foolish to wish for beauty. Sensible people never either desire it for themselves or care about it in others. If the mind be but well cultivated, and the heart well disposed, no one ever cares for the exterior.”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Brontë Sisters : Complete Novels: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Villette (NTMC Classics)