Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“I smiled: I thought to myself Mr. Rochester is peculiar—he seems to forget that he pays me £30 per annum for receiving his orders. “The smile is very well,” said he, catching instantly the passing expression; “but speak too.” “I was thinking, sir, that very few masters would trouble themselves to inquire whether or not their paid subordinates were piqued and hurt by their orders.” “Paid subordinates! What! you are my paid subordinate, are you? Oh yes, I had forgotten the salary! Well then, on that mercenary ground, will you agree to let me hector a little?” “No, sir, not on that ground; but, on the ground that you did forget it, and that you care whether or not a dependent is comfortable in his dependency, I agree heartily.” “And will you consent to dispense with a great many conventional forms and phrases, without thinking that the omission arises from insolence?” “I am sure, sir, I should never mistake informality for insolence: one I rather like, the other nothing free-born would submit to, even for a salary.” “Humbug! Most things free-born will submit to anything for a salary;”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“Accade a volte che coloro i quali conducono vita ritirata e la cui esistenza si svolge nell’isolamento d’un collegio o di altro alloggio murato e vigilato, scompaiano a un tratto e per molto tempo dalla memoria dei loro amici, abitatori d’un mondo più libero.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Leading and improving! teaching and tutoring! bearing and forbearing! Pah! my husband is not to be my baby. I am not to set him his daily lesson and see that he learns it, and give him a sugar-plum if he is good, and a patient, pensive, pathetic lecture if he is bad. But it is like a tutor to talk of the "satisfaction of teaching." I suppose you think it the finest employment in the world. I don't. I reject it. Improving a husband! No. I shall insist upon my husband improving me, or else we part.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Instead of sitting down in a retired corner, or stealing away to her own room till the procession should be marshalled, according to her wont,”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain,—the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man—perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Nature seemed to me benign and good; I thought she loved me, outcast as I was; and I, who from man could anticipate only mistrust, rejection, insult, clung to her with filial fondness.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Joe, do you seriously think all the wisdom in the world is lodged in male skulls?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“You see now how the case stands — do you not?” he continued. “After a youth and manhood passed half in unutterable misery and half in dreary solitude, I have for the first time found what I can truly love — I have found you. You are my sympathy — my better self — my good angel. I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wraps my existence about you, and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.

“It was because I felt and knew this, that I resolved to marry you. To tell me that I had already a wife is empty mockery: you know now that I had but a hideous demon. I was wrong to attempt to deceive you; but I feared a stubbornness that exists in your character. I feared early instilled prejudice: I wanted to have you safe before hazarding confidences. This was cowardly: I should have appealed to your nobleness and magnanimity at first, as I do now — opened to you plainly my life of agony — described to you my hunger and thirst after a higher and worthier existence — shown to you, not my RESOLUTION (that word is weak), but my resistless BENT to love faithfully and well, where I am faithfully and well loved in return. Then I should have asked you to accept my pledge of fidelity and to give me yours. Jane — give it me now.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“exactamente lo mismo que hacía antaño,”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Dou-lhe seis meses, mais ou menos, para o seu amor serenar. Observei nos livros escritos por homens que é esse o mais longo prazo atribuído ao amor dos maridos.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“A inferioridade intelectual não constituía para elas inconveniente de maior; baseavam as suas esperanças nos seus encantos pessoais.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Is there, indeed, such happiness on earth?” I asked, as I watched the father, the daughter, the future husband, now united—all blessed and blessing. Yes; it is so. Without any colouring of romance, or any exaggeration of fancy, it is so. Some real lives do—for some certain days or years—actually anticipate the happiness of Heaven; and, I believe, if such perfect happiness is once felt by good people (to the wicked it never comes), its sweet effect is never wholly lost. Whatever trials follow, whatever pains of sickness or shades of death, the glory precedent still shines through, cheering the keen anguish, and tinging the deep cloud.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“the aspect of a smiling Melanchthon.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

“The human heart has hidden treasures, in secret kept, in silence healed”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Not all, perhaps, who had shone brightly arrayed at that concert could say the same; for not all had been satisfied with friendship—with its calm comfort and modest hope.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“You are formed for labour, not for love.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“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

“But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.” “Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians and civilised nations disown it.” “How? I don’t understand.” “It is not violence that best overcomes hate—nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury.” “What then?” “Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He acts; make His word your rule, and His conduct your example.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: A Guide to Reading and Reflecting

“Enough is as good as a feast.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“I have told you, reader, that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester: I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me—because I might pass hours in his presence, and he would never once turn his eyes in my direction—because I saw all his attentions appropriated by a great lady, who scorned to touch me with the hem of her robes as she passed; who, if ever her dark and imperious eye fell on me by chance, would withdraw it instantly as from an object too mean to merit observation. I could not unlove him, because I felt sure he would”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“in a state of wretchedly imperfect mental development”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette by Charlotte Brontë ; [edited by Temple Scott]. Volume vol.1 1905 [Leather Bound]

“Aslında burada yeterince rahat bir şekilde dinlenebilirdim ama üzgün kalbim uykumu böldü. Kanayan yaralarımdan, kopmuş bağlarından dert yandı. Bay Rochester ve onun kaderi için adeta titredi. Onun büyük acısı yüzünden sızlandı. Bitmez tükenmez bir özlemle onu istedi. İki kanadı kırık aciz bir kuş gibi ona uçmak için çaresizce kıpırdanıp durmaktan bitap düştü.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain, the impalpable principle of life and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man - perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further, that, now and then, when I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to the gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adele played with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom, I climbed the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attic, and having reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and hill, and along dim sky-line - that then I longed for a power of vision which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen - that then I desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character, than was here within my reach. I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax, and what was good in Adele; but I believed in the existence of other and more vivid kinds of goodness, and what I believed in I wished to behold.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“A new servitude! There is something in that," I soliloquised (mentally, be it understood; I did not talk aloud), "I know there is, because it does not sound too sweet; it is not like such words as Liberty, Excitement, Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly; but no more than sounds for me; and so hollow and fleeting that it is mere waste of time to listen to them. But Servitude! That must be matter of fact.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“(oh, romantic reader, forgive me for telling the plain truth!)”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I enjoyed that day, though we travelled slowly, though it was cold, though it rained.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Well, he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for a moment I am beyond my own mastery. What does that mean? I did not think I should tremble in this way when I saw him – or lose my voice or the power of motion in his presence. I will go back as soon as I can stir: I need not make an absolute fool of myself. I know another way to the house. It does not signify if I knew twenty ways; for he has seen me.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“What contradictory attributes of character we sometimes find ascribed to us, according to the eye with which we are viewed!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villete

“Devo, giorno dopo giorno, rimanere incatenata a questa seggiola, prigioniera fra queste quattro mura, mentre in cielo brillano magnifici soli estivi e sta ritornando la stagione in cui l'anno s'arroventa dei colori più voluttuosi? Ed eccomi al termine di ciascuna di queste giornate estive, consapevole del fatto che il tempo che sto sciupando non tornerà più.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Lettere