Quotes by Anne Brontë

I may be permitted, like the doctors, to cure a greater evil by a less, for I shall not fall seriously in love with the young widow, I think, nor she with me - thats certain - but if I find a little pleasure in her society I may surely be allowed to seek it; and if the star of her divinity be bright enough to dim the lustre of Elizas, so much the better, but I scarcely can think it

Two years hence you will be as calm as I am now, - and far, far happier, I trust, for you are a man and free to act as you please

My prayers, my tears, my wishes, fears, and lamentations, were witnessed by myself and heaven alone. When we are harassed by sorrows or anxieties, or long oppressed by any powerful feelings which we must keep to ourselves, for which we can obtain and seek no sympathy from any living creature, and which yet we cannot, or will not wholly crush, we often naturally seek relief in poetry—and often find it, too—whether in the effusions of others, which seem to harmonize with our existing case, or in our own attempts to give utterance to those thoughts and feelings in strains less musical, perchance, but more appropriate, and therefore more penetrating and sympathetic, and, for the time, more soothing, or more powerful to rouse and to unburden the oppressed and swollen heart.

Though riches had charms, poverty had no terrors for an inexperiencedgirl like me. Indeed, to say the truth, there was something exhilaratingin the idea of being driven to straits, and thrown upon our own resources.I only wished papa, mamma, and Mary were all of the samemind as myself; and then, instead of lamenting past calamities we mightall cheerfully set to work to remedy them; and the greater the difficulties,the harder our present privations, the greater should be our cheerfulness to endure the latter, and our vigour to contend against the former.

A few cold words on yonder stone, A corpse as cold as they can be -­ Vain words, and mouldering dust, alone -­ Can this be all thats left of thee? O, no! thy spirit lingers still Whereer thy sunny smile was seen: Theres less of darkness, less of chill On earth, than if thou hadst not been.Thou breathest in my bosom yet, And dwellest in my beating heart; And, while I cannot quite forget, Thou, darling, canst not quite depart.

Severed and gone, so many years! And art thou still so dear to me, That throbbing heart and burning tears Can witness how I cling to thee?

It is natural for our unamiable sex to dislike the creatures, for you ladies lavish so many caresses upon them.

But this gives no proper idea of my feelings at all; and no one that has not lived such a retired stationary life as mine, can possibly imagine what they were: hardly even if he has known what it is to awake some morning, and find himself in Port Nelson, in New Zealand, with a world of waters between himself and all that knew him.

I still preserve those relics of past sufferings and experience, like pillars of witness set up in travelling through the valve of life, to mark particular occurrences. The footsteps are obliterated now; the face of the country may be changed; but the pillar is still there, to remind me how all things were when it was reared.

It’s well to have such a comfortable assurance regarding the worth of those we love. I only wish you may not find your confidence misplaced.

When I tell you not to marry without love, I do not advise you to marry for love alone - there are many, many other things to be considered.

I have heard that, with some persons, temperance – that is, moderation – is almost impossible; and if abstinence be an evil (which some have doubted), no one will deny that excess is a greater. Some parents have entirely prohibited their children from tasting intoxicating liquors; but a parent’s authority cannot last for ever; children are naturally prone to hanker after forbidden things; and a child, in such a case, would be likely to have a strong curiosity to taste, and try the effect of what has been so lauded and enjoyed by others, so strictly forbidden to himself – which curiosity would generally be gratified on the first convenient opportunity; and the restraint once broken, serious consequences might ensue.

I have often wished in vain, said she, for anothers judgment to appeal to when I could scarcely trust the direction of my own eye and head, they having been so long occupied with the contemplation of a single object as to become almost incapable of forming a proper idea respecting it.That, replied I, is only one of many evils to which a solitary life exposes us.

Oh, Youth may listen patiently,While sad Experience tells her tale,But Doubt sits smiling in his eye,For ardent Hope will still prevail!He hears how feeble Pleasure dies,By guilt destroyed, and pain and woe;He turns to Hope—and she replies,“Believe it not-it is not so!

How odd it is that we so often weep for each other’s distresses, when we shed not a tear for our own!

When a lady condescends to apologise, there is no keeping one’s anger.

Smiles and tears are so alike with me, they are neither of them confined to any particular feelings: I often cry when I am happy, and smile when I am sad.

She left me, offended at my want of sympathy, and thinking, no doubt, that I envied her. I did not - at least, I firmly believed I did not.

I’ll promise to think twice before I take any important step you seriously disapprove of.

He cannot endure Rachel, because he knows she has a proper appreciation of him.