Quotes by Charlotte Brontë

He did not yet known how many commenced lefe-romances are doomed never to get beyond the first, or at most the second chapter.

Observe her when she has some knitting, or some other womans work in hand, and sits the image of peace, calmly intent on her needles and her silk, some discussion meantime going on around her, in the course of which peculiarities of character are being developed, or important interests canvassed; she takes no part in int; her humble, feminine mind is wholl with her knitting; none of her features move; she neither presumes to smile approval, nor frown disapprobation; her little hands assiduously ply their unpretending task; if she can only get this purse finished, or this bonnet-grec completed, it is enough for her.

One morning at the end of the two years, as I was writing a letter to his dictation, he came and bent over me, and said--Jane, have you a glittering ornament round your neck? I had a gold watch-chain: I answered Yes. And have you a pale blue dress on?I had. He informed me then, that for some time he had fancied the obscurity clouding one eye was becoming less dense; and that now he was sure of it.

Jane! will you hear reason? (he stooped and approached his lips to my ear) because, if you wont, Ill try violence.

Reason sits firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild chasms. The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgment shall still have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote in every decision. Strong wind, earthquake-shock, and fire may pass by: but I shall follow the guiding of that still small voice which interprets the dictates of conscience.

She bit me. She worried me like a tigress, when Rochester got the knife from her...She sucked the blood: she said shed drain my heart. Richard mason

Existence was never originally meant to be that useless, blank, pale, slow-trailing thing it often becomes to many, and is becoming to me among the rest.

I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste.

I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing. I abandoned it and framed a humbler supplication. For change, stimulus. That petition, too, seemed swept off into vague space. Then, I cried, half desperate, grant me at least a new servitude!

My heart almost died within me; miserable longings strained its chords. How long were the September days! How silent, how lifeless!

It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you.

It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience. God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate: and when our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get--when our will strains after a path we may not follow--we need neither starve from inanition, not stand still in despair: we have but to seek another nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden fruit it longed to taste--and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if rougher than it.

They outnumbered me, and I was worsted and under their feet; but, as yet, I was not dead.

I sat down and tried to rest. I could not; though I had been on foot all day, I could not now repose an instant; I was too much excited. A phase of my life was closing tonight, a new one opening tomorrow: impossible to slumber in the interval; I must watch feverishly while the change was being accomplished.

The world, I soon learned, held a different estimate: and I make no doubt, the world is very right in its view, yet believe also that I am not quite wrong in mine.

I laughed at him as he said this. “I am not an angel,” I asserted; “and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me—for you will not get it, any more than I shall get it of you: which I do not at all anticipate.

No man likes to acknowledge that he has made a mistake in the choice of his profession, and every man, worthy of the name, will row long against wind and tide before he allows himself to cry out, I am baffled! and submits to be floated passively back to land.

Was I gleeful, settled, content, during the hours I passed in yonder bare, humble schoolroom this morning and afternoon? Not to decieve myself, I must reply -- No: I felt desolate to a degree. I felt -- yes, idiot that I am -- I felt degraded. I doubted I had taken a step which sank instead of raising me in the scale of social existence. I was weakly dismayed at the ignorance, the poverty, the coarseness of all I heard and saw around me. But let me not hate and despise myself too much for these feelings; I know them to be wrong -- that is a great step gained. I shall strive to overcome them.

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.

Some have won a wild delight,By daring wilder sorrow;Could I gain thy love to-night,Id hazard death to-morrow.