Charlotte Bronte Quotes (273 Quotes)





    I both wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester on the day which followed this sleepless night. I wanted to hear his voice again, yet feared to meet his eye.

    I honour endurance, perseverance, industry, talent; because these are the means by which men achieve great ends and mount to lofty eminence. -St.John Rivers


    I think that good reads is a good website to check out what book you want to read. Jane Eyre is a very sad book and poignant. It's really sad because she's an orphan and nobody wants her. A woman finds out that she is an orphan and adopts her. Jane treats her as if that were here mother and they get along very beautifully at the end.

    It had formerly been my endeavor to study all sides of his character: to take the bad with the good; and from the just weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment. Now I saw no bad. The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid.

    My future husband was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol.

    Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put into the ice of their questions? How much of the fall of the avalanche is in their anger? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their displeasure?


    Yet, when this cherished volume was now placed in my hand-when I turned over its leaves, and sought in its marvellous pictures the charm I had, till now, never failed to find-all was eerie and dreary; the giants were gaunt goblins, the pigmies malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a most desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions. I closed the book, which I dared no longer peruse, and put it on the table, beside the untasted tart.


    To speak truth, reader, there is no excellent beauty, no accomplished grace, no refinement, without strength as excellent, as complete, as trustworthy.

    And if I let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of rain turn me aside from these easy tasks, what preparation would such sloth be for the future I propose to myself?


    His chest heaved once, as if his large heart, weary of despotic constriction, had expanded, despite the will, and made a vigorous bound for the attainment of liberty.

    I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.

    I knew he would soon strike, and while dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him who would presently deal it.


    It is a happy thing that time quells the longings of vengeance and hushes the promptings of rage and aversion. I had left this woman in bitterness and hate, and I came back to her now with no other emotion than a sort of ruth for her great sufferings, and strong yearning to forget and forgive all injuries - to be reconciled and clasp hands in amity.

    My habitual mood of humiliation, self-doubt, forlorn depression, fell damp on the embers of my decaying ire.

    Religion called - Angels beckoned - God commanded - life rolled together like a scroll - death's gates opening showed eternity beyond.





    And it is you, spirit--with will and energy, and virtue and purity--that I want, not alone with your brittle frame.

    En osaa käyttää minkäänlaista keskitietä. Ollessani tekemisissä omalle luonteelleni täysin vastakkaisten, määräävien ja kovien luonteitten kanssa olen aina joko alistunut nöyrästi tai kapinoinut vimmatusti. Joskus olen nöyrtynyt melkein katkeamispisteeseen saakka, joskus purkautunut kiihkeästi kuin tulivuori.

    His idea was still with me, because it was not a vapor sunshine could disperse, nor a sand-traced effigy storms could wash away; it was a name graven on a tablet, fated to last as long as the marble it inscribed. The craving to know what had become of him followed me everywhere.

    I could not answer the ceaseless inward question-why I thus suffered; now, at the distance of-I will not say how many years, I see it clearly.

    I know I must conceal my sentiments: I must smother hope; I must remember that he cannot care much for me. For when I say that I am of his kind, I do not mean that I have his force to influence, and his spell to attract: I mean only that I have certain tastes and feelings in common with him.I must, then, repeat continually that we are forever sundered: - and yet, while I breathe and think, I must love him.

    I thought of him now-in his room-watching the sunrise; hoping I should soon come to say I would stay with him and be his. I longed to be his; I panted to return; it was not too late.


    My help had been needed and claimed; I had given it: I was pleased to have done something: trivial, transitory though the deed was, it was yet an active thing, and I was weary of an existence all passive.


    There is something in that, 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.

    You have introduced a topic on which our natures are at variance -- a topic we should never discuss: the very name of love is an apple of discord between us. If the reality were required, what should we do? How should we feel? My dear cousin, abandon your scheme of marriage -- forget it.

    I doubt if I have made the best use of all my calamities. Soft, amiable natures they would have refined to saintliness; of strong, evil spirits they would have made demons; as for me, I have only been a woe-struck and selfish woman.




    Hopeless of the future, I wished but this- that my Maker had that night thought good to require my soul of me while I slept; and that this weary frame, absolved by death from further conflict with fate, had now but to decay quietly, and mingle in peace with the soil of this wilderness.


    I know my Leader; that He is just as well as mighty; and while He has chosen a feeble instrument to perform a great task, He will, from the boundless stores of His providence, supply the inadequacy of the means to the end.

    I turned my lips to the hand that lay on my shoulder. I loved him very much - more than I could trust myself to say - more than words had power to express







    More Charlotte Bronte Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Life - Mind - Love - World - Happiness - Thought & Thinking - Nature - Joy & Excitement - Emotions - Sadness - Friendship - Hope - Pride - Fate & Destiny - Pleasure - Dreams - Books - Beauty - Future - View All Charlotte Bronte Quotations

    More Charlotte Bronte Quotations (By Book Titles)


    - Jane Eyre
    - Villette

    Related Authors


    Leo Tolstoy - Franz Kafka - Ernest Hemingway - Charles Dickens - Tom Clancy - Louisa May Alcott - Honore de Balzac - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Emily Bronte - Arthur Herzog


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