Charlotte Bronte Quotes (273 Quotes)

Not in scorn do I reprove thee,
Not in pride thy vows I waive,
But, believe, I could not love thee,
Wert thou prince, and I a slave.

Feeling without judgment is a washy draught indeed but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition.

Fortune is proverbially called changeful, yet her caprice often takes the form of repeating again and again a similar stroke of luck in the same quarter.

For me the universe is dumb,
Stone-deaf, and blank, and wholly blind;
Life I must bound, existence sum
In the strait limits of one mind;

Spoken to her husband of nine months, Rev. Arthur Nicholls. Oh, I am not going to die, am I He will not separate us, we have been so happy.

Memory in youth is active and easily impressible; in old age it is comparatively callous to new impressions, but still retains vividly those of earlier years.

You had no right to be born; for you make no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person's strength.

If still the paths of lore she follow,
'Twill be with tired and goaded will;
She'll only toil, the aching hollow,
The joyless blank of life to fill.

My love is almost anguish now,
It beats so strong and true;
'Twere rapture, could I deem that thou
Such anguish ever knew.

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.

One does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah at hearing one has got a fortune, one begins to consider responsibilities, and to ponder business on a base of steady satisfaction rise certain grave cares, and we contain ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn brow.

We take from life one little share,
And say that this shall be
A space, redeemed from toil and care,
From tears and sadness free.

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last.

You know full well as I do the value of sisters' affections: There is nothing like it in this world.

The prime of life is in his veins,
And sends his blood fast flowing,
And Fancy's fervour warms the thoughts
Now in his bosom glowing.

You -- poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are -- I entreat to accept me as a husband.

So much has religion done for me turning the original materials to the best account pruning and training nature. But she could not eradicate nature nor will it be eradicated 'till this mortal shall put on immortality.

Who has words at the right moment?

I feel monotony and death to be almost the same.

If we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love friends for their sake rather than for our own.

It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

I am always easy of belief when the creed pleases me.

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs.