Charlotte Brontë > Quotes

“The spell by which I had been so far supported began to dissolve; reaction took place, and soon, so overwhelming was the grief that seized me, I sank prostrate with my face to the ground.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“- Powiedz mi, jesteś przecież wróżką, czy nie możesz mi dać jakiego talizmanu, napoju, cudownego ziela czy czegoś w tym rodzaju, żeby ze mnie zrobić przystojnego mężczyznę?

- Na to magia nie ma środka, proszę pana - odpowiedziałam dodając w myśli: "Kochające oczy byłyby tym talizmanem; i dla takich oczu jesteś wystarczająco urodziwy, a surowość twej twarzy ma większą moc niż uroda."

- Pan Rochester i Jane Eyre "Jane Eyre”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

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

“Two hot, close rooms thus became my world; and a crippled old woman, my mistress, my friend, my all. Her service was my duty - her pain, my suffering - her relief, my hope - her anger, my punishment - her regard, my reward.”
― Charlotte Brontë

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

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“Independently of romantic rubbish, however, that old garden had its charms. On summer mornings I used to rise early, to enjoy them alone; on summer evenings, to linger solitary, to keep tryste with the rising moon, or taste one kiss of the evening breeze, or fancy rather than feel the freshness of dew descending. The turf was verdant, the gravelled walks were white; sun-bright nasturtiums clustered beautiful about the roots of the doddered orchard giants. There was a large berceau, above which spread the shade of an acacia; there was a smaller, more sequestered bower, nestled in the vines which ran all along a high and grey wall, and gathered their tendrils in a knot of beauty, and hung their clusters in loving profusion about the favoured spot where jasmine and ivy met and married them.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Charlotte Brontë Complete Works: Jane Eyre, Villette & Shirley: Premium Classic Literature Edition

“I then ordered my brain to find a response, and quickly. It worked and worked faster. I felt the pulses throb in my head and temples; but for nearly an hour it worked in chaos, and no result came of its efforts. Feverish, with vain labour, I got up and took a turn in the room, undrew the curtain, noted a star or two, shivered with cold, and again crept to bed.

A kind fairy in my absence had surely dropped the required suggestion on my pillow, for as I lay down it came quietly and naturally to my mind.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Trae más cuenta soportar con paciencia un dolor que solamente sufres tú, que emprender atolondradamente una decisión cuyas perjudiciales consecuencias alcanzarían también a gente vinculada contigo. Aparte de eso, la Biblia nos aconseja devolver bien por mal.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“I care for myself.  The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Sein Geist war Wein von einem guten Jahrgang, zu milde und zu voll, um bei einem Donnerschlag sauer zu werden.
- Lucy Snowe”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“[...] and a sense of mutual affection seemed to surround us with a ring of golden peace, I uttered a silent prayer that we might not be parted far or soon;”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“You need not look in that way," I said; "if you do, I'll wear nothing but my old Lowood frocks to the end of the chapter. I'll be married in this lilac gingham: you may make a dressing-gown for yourself out of the pearl-grey silk, and an infinite series of waistcoats out of the black satin.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Now,’ he continued, again addressing me, ‘I have received the pilgrim – a disguised deity, as I verily believe. Already it has done me good: my heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine.’ ‘To speak truth, sir, I don’t understand you at all; I cannot keep up the conversation, because it has got out of my depth. Only one thing I know: you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that you regretted your own imperfection; one thing I can comprehend: you intimated that to have a sullied memory was a perpetual bane. It seems to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to become what you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you began with resolution to correct your thoughts and actions, you would in a few years have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections, to which you might revert with pleasure.’ ‘Justly thought; rightly said, Miss Eyre; and, at this moment, I am paving hell11 with energy.’ ‘Sir?’ ‘I am laying down good intentions, which I believe durable as flint. Certainly, my associates and pursuits shall be other than they have been.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Your spirit and mine must have met to comfort each other.!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“If life be a war, it seemed my destiny to conduct it single-handed. I pondered now how to break up my winter-quarters—to leave an encampment where food and forage failed. Perhaps, to effect this change, another pitched battle must be fought with fortune; if so, I had a mind to the encounter: too poor to lose, God might destine me to gain. But what road was open?—what plan available?”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“Self-righteousness is not religion.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Life, however, was yet in my possession: with all its requirements, and pains, and responsibilities. The burden must be carried; the want provided for; the suffering endured; the responsibility fulfilled.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for 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 insane -- quite insane, with my veins running fire and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, forgone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.”
― Charlotte Brontë

“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, wrap my existence about you–and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Ükski naine maailmas pole oma elukaaslase hingele nii lähedal seisnud kui mina, sest ma olen otsekui liha tema lihast ja veri tema verest. Me ei väsi iial teineteise seltskonnast, nii nagu ei väsi meie südamed teineteisest, kuigi nad tuksuvad erinevas rinnas. Järelikult oleme me alati üheskoos. Olla koos — tähendab tunda end vabana nagu üksinduses ja rõõmsana nagu meeldivas seltskonnas. Kogu meie päev möödub vestluses ja meie vestlus pole midagi muud kui valjusti mõtlemine.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“This lady, ma’am,” he answered, “turned out to be Mr. Rochester’s wife! The discovery was brought about in the strangest way. There was a young lady, a governess at the Hall, that Mr. Rochester fell in—” “But the fire,” I suggested. “I’m coming to that, ma’am—that Mr. Edward fell in love with. The servants say they never saw anybody so much in love as he was: he was after her continually. They used to watch him—servants will, you know, ma’am—and he set store on her past everything: for all, nobody but him thought her so very handsome.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“«No; tú sola debes ayudarte; tú debes arrancar, si es necesario, tu ojo derecho y cortar tu propia mano. Sólo tu corazón debe ser la víctima de tu error.»”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“She was very showy, but she was not genuine: she had a fine person, many brilliant attainments; but her mind was poor, her heart barren by nature: nothing bloomed spontaneously on that soil; no unforced natural fruit delighted by its freshness. She was not good; she was not original: she used to repeat sounding phrases from books: she never offered, nor had, an opinion of her own. She advocated a high tone of sentiment; but she did not know the sensations of sympathy and pity; tenderness and truth were not in her. Too often she betrayed this, by the undue vent she gave to a spiteful antipathy she had conceived against little Adèle: pushing”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“And your will shall decide your destiny,” he said: “I offer you my hand, my heart, and a share of all my possessions.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The afternoon was wet: a walk the party had proposed to take to see a gipsy camp, lately pitched on a common beyond Hay, was consequently deferred. Some of the gentlemen were gone to the stables: the younger ones, together with the younger ladies, were playing billiards in the billiard-room. The dowagers Ingram and Lynn sought solace in a quiet game at cards. Blanche Ingram, after having repelled, by supercilious taciturnity, some efforts of Mrs. Dent and Mrs. Eshton to draw her into conversation, had first murmured over some sentimental tunes and airs on the piano, and then, having fetched a novel from the library, had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa, and prepared to beguile, by the spell of fiction, the tedious hours of absence. The room and the house were silent: only now and then the merriment of the billiard-players was heard from above.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition

“Reason was my physician. She began by proving that the prize I had missed was of little value.”
― Charlotte Brontë, The Professor

“...I could have deemed that in some wild, lone scene, I and Jane were meeting. In spirit, I believe we must have met. You no doubt were, at that hour, in unconscious sleep, Jane: perhaps your soul wandered from its cell to comfort mine...”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“For the world's judgement — I wash my hands thereof. For man's opinion — I defy it.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Dr. John, throughout his whole life, was a man of luck - a man of success. And why? Because he had the eye to see his opportunity, the heart to prompt to well-timed action, the nerve to consummate a perfect work. And no tyrant-passion dragged him back; no enthusiasms, no foibles encumbered his way.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette