Charlotte Bronte Quotes & Sayings

All the female Brocklehursts produce their pocket-handkerchiefs and apply them to their optics, while — Charlotte Bronte

Look here; to gain some real affection from you, or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest - — Charlotte Bronte

The cool peace and dewy sweetness of the night filled me with a mood of hope: not hope on any definite point, but a general sense of encouragement and heart-ease. — Charlotte Bronte

Because when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded. Arrows that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester's breast and fell harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have quivered keen in his proud heart - have called love into his stern eye, and softness into his sardonic face, or better still, without weapons a silent conquest might have been won. — Charlotte Bronte

It was her pleasure, her joy, to make me still the master in all things. — Charlotte Bronte

I had already gained the door; but, reader, I walked back
walked back as determinedly as I had retreated. I knelt down by him; I turned his face from the cushion to me; I kissed his cheek; I smoothed his hair with my hand.
"God bless you, my dear master!" I said. "God keep you from harm and wrong
direct you, solace you
reward you well for your past kindness to me. — Charlotte Bronte

Is it really for love he is going to marry you?" She asked.
I was so hurt by her coldness and scepticism that the tears rose to my eyes.
"I am sorry to grieve you," pursued the widow; "but you are so young, and so little acquainted with men, I wished to put you on your guard. It is an old saying that 'all is not gold that glitters;' and in this case I do fear there will be something found to be different to what either you or I expect. — Charlotte Bronte

It strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I absolutely must be torn from you for ever. I see the necessity of departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of death. — Charlotte Bronte

I will bestir myself,' was her resolution, 'and try to be wise if I cannot be good. — Charlotte Bronte

My fine visions are all very well, but I must not forget they are absolutely unreal. I have a rosy sky and a green flowery Eden in my brain; but without, I am perfectly aware, lies at my feet a rough tract to travel, and around me gather black tempests to encounter. — Charlotte Bronte

Courage, Lucy Snowe! With self-denial and economy now, and steady exertion by-and-by, an object in life need not fail you. Venture not to complain that such an object is too selfish, too limited, and lacks interest; be content to labour for independence until you have proved, by winning that prize, your right to look higher. — Charlotte Bronte

Nervous alarms should always be communicated, that they may be dissipated. — Charlotte Bronte

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

We should acknowledge God merciful, but not always for us comprehensible. — Charlotte Bronte

If there are words and wrongs like knives, whose deep inflicted lacerations never heal - cutting injuries and insults of serrated and poison-dripping edge - so, too, there are consolations of tone too fine for the ear not fondly and for ever to retain their echo: caressing kindnesses - loved, lingered over through a whole life, recalled with unfaded tenderness, and answering the call with undimmed shine, out of that raven cloud foreshadowing Death himself. — Charlotte Bronte

There are people who seem to have no notion of sketching a character, or observing and describing salient points, either in persons or things: — Charlotte Bronte

Oh! that gentleness! how far more potent is it than force! — Charlotte Bronte

This night is not calm; the equinox still struggles in its storms. The wild rains of the day are abated; the great single cloud disparts and rolls away from heaven, not passing and leaving a sea all sapphire, but tossed buoyant before a continued, long-sounding, high-rushing moonlight tempest. The Moon reigns glorious, glad of the gale, as glad as if she gave herself to his fierce caress with love. No Endymion will watch for his goddess tonight. there are no flocks out on the mountains; and it is well, for to-night she welcomes Aeolus. — Charlotte Bronte

Silence is of different kinds, and breathes different meanings. — Charlotte Bronte

Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?"
"Yes, in a passive way: I make no effort; I follow as inclination guides me. There is no merit in such goodness. — Charlotte Bronte

What tale do you like best to hear?' 'Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same theme - courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe - marriage. — Charlotte Bronte

I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad - as I am now. — Charlotte Bronte

He took on their insolent pride the revenge of the purest charity - housing, caring for, befriending them, so as no son could have done it more tenderly and efficiently. — Charlotte Bronte

Little Jane's love would have been my best reward, without it, my heart is broken. — Charlotte Bronte

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. — Charlotte Bronte

-But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know?
-I believe; I have faith: I am going to God.
-Where is God? What is God?
-My maker and yours, who will never destroy what He created. I rely implicitly on His power, and confide wholly in His goodness: I count the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to Him, reveal Him to me. — Charlotte Bronte

The word book acted as a transient stimulus — Charlotte Bronte

And as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it - as I had neither joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved my lips - it came: in full heavy swing the torrent poured over me. The whole consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched, my faith death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen mass. — Charlotte Bronte

I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitments, awaited those who had the courage to go forth into it's expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst it's perils. — Charlotte Bronte

I like this day; I like that sky of steel; I like the
sternness and stillness of the world under this frost. — Charlotte Bronte

You do not know how the people of this country bear malice. It is the boast of some of them that they can keep a stone in their pocket seven years, turn it at the end of that time, keep it seven years longer, and hurl it and hit their mark at last. — Charlotte Bronte

Propensities and principles must be reconciled by some means. — Charlotte Bronte

He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. — Charlotte Bronte

You have rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that sort of face. — Charlotte Bronte

Look twice before you leap. — Charlotte Bronte

My hopes were all dead
struck with a subtle doom, such as, in one night, fell on all the first-born in the land of Egypt. I looked on my cherished wishes, yesterday so blooming and glowing; they lay stark, chill, livid corpses that could never revive. I looked at my love: that feeling which had been my master's
which he had created; it shivered in my heart, like a suffering child in a cold cradle; sickness and anguish had seized it; it could not seek Mr Rochester's arms
it could not derive warmth from his breast. Oh, never more could it turn to him; for faith was blighted
confidence destroyed! — Charlotte Bronte

I see," he said," the mountain will never be brought to Mahomet, so all you can do is to aid Mahomet to go to the mountain ... — Charlotte Bronte

I know how soon youth would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss offered, but one dreg of shame, or one flavour of remorse were detected; and I do not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution - such is not my taste. I wish to foster, not to blight - to earn gratitude, not to wring tears of blood - no, nor of brine: my harvest must be in smiles, in endearments, in sweet. — Charlotte Bronte

The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgement shall still have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote in every decision. — Charlotte Bronte

My home is humble and unattractive to strangers, but to me it contains what I shall find nowhere else in the world - the ... affection which brothers and sisters feel for each other. — Charlotte Bronte

Where the sun had gone down in simple state - pure of the pomp of clouds - spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of red jewel and furnace flame at one point, on one hill-peak, and extending high and wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven. The east had its own charm or fine deep blue, and its own modest gem, a casino and solitary star: soon it would boast the moon; but she was yet beneath the horizon. — Charlotte Bronte

I have little left in myself
I must have you. The world may laugh
may call me absurd, selfish
but it does not signify. My very soul demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame. — Charlotte Bronte

Is not the real experience of each individual very limited? And, if a writer dwells upon that solely or principally, is he not in danger of repeating himself, and also of becoming an egotist? Then, too, imagination is a strong, restless faculty, which claims to be heard and exercised: are we to be quite deaf to her cry, and insensate to her struggles? When she shows us bright pictures, are we never to look at them, and try to reproduce them? And when she is eloquent, and speaks rapidly and urgently in our ear, are we not to write to her dictation? — Charlotte Bronte

The writer who possesses the creative gift of fantasy owns something of which he is not always master; something that, at times, strangely wills and works for itself. — Charlotte Bronte

But there was ever in Mr. Rochester (so at least I thought) such a wealth of
the power of communicating happiness, that to taste but of the
crumbs he scattered to stray and stranger birds like me, was to
feast genially. — Charlotte Bronte

Women are supposed to be calm generally: but women feel just as men feel ... — Charlotte Bronte

At eighteen the true narrative of life is yet to be
commenced. Before that time we sit listening to a tale, a marvelous fiction, delightful sometimes, and sad sometimes, almost always unreal. Before that time our world is heroic, its inhabitants half-divine or semi-demon; its scenes are dreamscenes; darker woods and stranger hills, brighter skies, more dangerous waters, sweeter flowers, more tempting fruits, wider plains, drearier deserts, sunnier fields than are found in nature, overspread our enchanted globe. What a moon we gaze on before that time! How the trembling of our hearts at her aspect bears
witness to its unutterable beauty! — Charlotte Bronte

Till morning dawned I was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble rolled under surges of joy. — Charlotte Bronte

I know that a pretty doll, a fair fool, might do well enough for the honeymoon; but when passion cooled, how dreadful to find a lump of wax and wood laid in my bosom, a half-idiot clasped in my arms, and to remember that I had made of this my equal- nay, my idol- to know that I must pass the rest of my dreary life with a creature incapable of understanding what I said, of appreciating what I thought, or of sympathising with what I felt! — Charlotte Bronte

Then the curtain rises, and you will see the girl to whom I am going to give all my life, to whom I have given everything that is good in me. — Charlotte Bronte

No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise. — Charlotte Bronte

I had now swallowed my tea. I was mightily refreshed by the beverage; as much so as a giant with wine: it gave new tone to my unstrung nerves, and enabled me to address this penetrating young judge steadily. — Charlotte Bronte

A waft of wind came sweeping down the laurel-walk, and trembled through the boughs of the chestnut: it wandered away-away-to an indefinite distance-it died. The nightingale's song was then the only voice of the hour: in listening to it, I again wept. — Charlotte Bronte

I think I must admit so fair a guest when it asks entrance to my heart. — Charlotte Bronte

Probably, if I had lately left a good home and kind parents, this would have been the hour when I should most keenly have regretted the separation: that wind would then have saddened my heart; this obscure chaos would have disturbed my peace: as it was I derived from both a strange excitement, and reckless and feverish, I wished the wind to howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and the confusion to rise to clamour. — Charlotte Bronte

Perhaps you think I had forgotten Mr. Rochester, reader, amidst these changes of place and fortune. Not for a moment. His idea was still with me, because it was not a vapour 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. — Charlotte Bronte

I scorned the insinuation of helplessness and distraction, shook off his hand, and began to walk about again. — Charlotte Bronte

It was as if a band of Italian days had come from the South, like a flock of glorious passenger birds, and lighted to rest them on the cliffs of Albion. — Charlotte Bronte

Because I want to read your countenance - turn! — Charlotte Bronte

The housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent phlegmatic order of people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate a remarkable piece of news without incurring the danger of having one's ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation, and subsequently stunned by a torrent of wordy wonderment. — Charlotte Bronte

To toil, to think, to long, to grieve,
Is such my future fate?
The morn was dreary, must the eve
Be also desolate? — Charlotte Bronte

My fear had by now passed its limit, and other feelings took its place. — Charlotte Bronte

With what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged! — Charlotte Bronte

Why can she not influence him more, when she is privileged to draw
so near to him?" I asked myself. "Surely she cannot truly like him, or not
like him with true affection! If she did, she need not coin her smiles so
lavishly, flash her glances so unremittingly, manufacture airs so elaborate,
graces so multitudinous. — Charlotte Bronte

If I spoke all I think on this point, if I gave my real opinion of some first-rate female characters in first-rate works, where should I be? Dead under a cairn of avenging stones in half an hour. — Charlotte Bronte

I am, as Miss Scatcherd said, slatternly; I seldom put, and certainly never keep, things in order; I am careless; I forget rules; I read when I should learn my lessons; I have no method; and sometimes I say, like you, I cannot bear to be subjected to systematic arrangements. — Charlotte Bronte

Beauty is in the eye of the gazer. — Charlotte Bronte

A loving eye is all the charm needed: to such you are handsome enough; or rather your sternness has a power beyond beauty. — Charlotte Bronte

They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that could not sympathise with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed to them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, incapable of serving their interest, or adding to their pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment, of contempt of their judgment. I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child - though equally dependent and friendless - Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more complacently; her children would have entertained ... — Charlotte Bronte

I'm just going to write because I cannot help it. — Charlotte Bronte

A phase of my life was closing to-night, a
new one opening to-morrow: impossible to slumber in the interval; I must watch feverishly while the change was being
accomplished. — Charlotte Bronte

Ex-act-ly, pre-cisely: with your usual acuteness, you have hit the nail straight on the head. — Charlotte Bronte

I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience shall dispose of my hand
they only. Know this at last. — Charlotte Bronte

I was a human being, and had a human being's wants: I must not linger where there was nothing to supply them. — Charlotte Bronte

The shadows are as important as the light. — Charlotte Bronte

What will you do with your accomplishments? What, with the largest portion of your mind - sentiments - tastes?" "Save them till they are wanted. They will keep. — Charlotte Bronte

Monsieur, if a wife's nature loathes that of the man she is wedded to, marriage must be slavery. Against slavery all right thinkers revolt, and though torture be the price of resistance, torture must be dared: though the only road to freedom lie through the gates of death, those gates must be passed; for freedom is indispensable. Then, monsieur, I would resist as far as my strength permitted; when that strength failed I should be sure of a refuge. Death would certainly screen me both from bad laws and their consequences. — Charlotte Bronte

My state of mind, and all accompanying circumstances, were just now such as most to favour the adoption of a new, resolute, and daring - perhaps desperate - line of action. I had nothing to lose. — Charlotte Bronte

Who are you, Miss Snowe?" ...
"Who am I indeed? Perhaps a personage in disguise. — Charlotte Bronte

By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away my liberty of mind: his praise and notice were more restraining than his indifference. I could no longer talk or laugh freely when he was by, because a tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me that vivacity (at least in me) was distateful to him. I was so fully aware that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable, that in his presence every effort to sustain or follow any other became vain: I fell under a freezing spell. When he said 'go', I went; 'come', I came; 'do this', I dit it. But I did not love my servitude [ ... ]. — Charlotte Bronte

And I do not want a stranger - unsympathising, alien, different from me; I want my kidred: those with whom I have a full fellow-feeling. — Charlotte Bronte

What do I want? A new place, in a new house, amongst new faces, under new circumstances. — Charlotte Bronte

In catalepsy and a dead trance, I studiously held the quick of my nature. — Charlotte Bronte

As to the mouth, it delights at times in laughter; it is disposed to impart all that the brain conceives; though I daresay it would be silent on much the heart experiences. Mobile and flexible, it was never intended to be compressed in the eternal silence of solitude: it is a mouth which should speak much and smile often, and have human affection for its interlocutor. — Charlotte Bronte

Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at it for myself. We were born to strive and endure - you as well as I: do so. You will forget me before I forget you. — Charlotte Bronte

Most things free-born will submit to anything for a salary. — Charlotte Bronte

Mr. Brocklehurst, who, from his wealth and family connections, could not be overlooked, still retained the post of treasurer; but he was aided in the discharge of his duties by gentlemen of rather more enlarged and sympathising minds: — Charlotte Bronte

Alas, Experience! No other mentor has so wasted and frozen a face as yours, none wears a robe so black, none bears a rod so heavy, none with hand so inexorable draws the novice so sternly to his task, and forces him with authority so resistless to its acquirement. It is by your instructions alone that man or woman can ever find a safe track through life's wilds; without it, how they stumble, how they stray! On what forbidden grounds do they intrude, down what dread declivities are they hurled! — Charlotte Bronte

He is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for a moment I am beyond my own mastery. What does it mean? I did not think I should tremble in this way when I saw him, or lose my voice or the power of motion in his presence. — Charlotte Bronte

There are certain things in which we so rarely meet with our double that it seems a miracle when that chance befalls. — Charlotte Bronte

I liked my name pronounced by your lips in a grateful, happy accent. — Charlotte Bronte

I know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost; nor has Mammon gained power over either, to bind or slay: they will both assert their existence, their presence, their liberty and strength again one day. — Charlotte Bronte

To wonder sadly, did I say? No: a new influence began to act upon my life, and sadness, for a certain space, was held at bay. Conceive a dell, deep-hollowed in forest secresy; it lies in dimness and mist: its turf is dank, its herbage pale and humid. A storm or an axe makes a wide gap amongst the oak-trees; the breeze sweeps in; the sun looks down; the sad, cold dell becomes a deep cup of lustre; high summer pours her blue glory and her golden light out of that beauteous sky, which till now the starved hollow never saw. A new creed became mine - a belief in happiness. — Charlotte Bronte

I am sure there is a future state; I believe God is good; I can resign my immortal part to Him without any misgiving. God is my father; God is my friend: I love Him; I believe He loves me. — Charlotte Bronte

The love, born of beauty was not mine; I had nothing in common with it: I could not dare to meddle with it, but another love, venturing diffidently into life after long acquaintance, furnace-tried by pain, stamped by constancy, consolidated by affection's pure and durable alloy, submitted by intellect to intellect's own tests, and finally wrought up, by his own process, to his own unflawed completeness, this Love that laughed at Passion, his fast frenzies and his hot and hurried extinction, in this Love I had a vested interest; and whatever tended either to its culture or its destruction, I could not view impassibly. — Charlotte Bronte

My Uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think; and so can papa and mama: they know how you shut me up all day long, and how you wish me dead. Mrs. Reed soon rallied her spirits: she shook me most soundly, she boxed both my ears, and then left me without a word. Bessie supplied the hiatus by a homily of an hour's length, in which she proved beyond a doubt that I was the most wicked and abandoned child ever reared under a roof. I half believed her; for I felt indeed only bad feelings surging in my breast. — Charlotte Bronte

It would take a great deal to crush me — Charlotte Bronte

Brainless and vicious youth whom I had sometimes met in society, and had never thought of hating because I despised him so absolutely. — Charlotte Bronte

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. — Charlotte Bronte

A depressing and difficult passage has prefaced every page I have turned in life. — Charlotte Bronte