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Charlotte Bronte

Charlotte Bronte Quotes

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Famous Charlotte Bronte Quotes

“The practice of hinting by single letters those expletives with which profane and violent persons are wont to garnish their discourse, strikes me as a proceeding which, however, well meant, is weak and futile. I cannot tell what good it does - what feeling it spares - what horror it conceals.”

WellsPersonsDoeFeelingsPracticeHorrorLettersWeakStrikesViolentSparesDiscourseProceedingSwearingProfaneExpletives
Book:Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey: In Two Volumes
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“If you like poetry let it be first rate, Milton, Shakespeare, Thomson, Goldsmith Pope (if you will though I don't admire him), Scott, Byron, Campbell, Wordsworth and Southey. Now Ellen don't be startled at the names of Shakespeare, and Byron. Both these were great Men and their works are like themselves, You will know how to chuse the good and avoid the evil, the finest passages are always the purest, the bad are invariably revolting you will never wish to read them over twice.”

IfsKnowsMenFirstsEvilNamesWishKnow HowRateAdmireGreat MenCampsPassagesPopeFinestMiltonByronWordsworthElls
Author:Charlotte Bronte
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“A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen shroud: lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, to-day were pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods, which twelve hours since waved leafy and flagrant as groves between the tropics, now spread, waste, wild, and white as pine-forests in wintry Norway.”

LastsNightHoursWhiteFlowerWasteLaysRoseSpreadWoodsStormSnowForestsIceApplesTwelveFrozenLast NightJuneCrushedLanesRipeDecemberFrostGroveNorwayShroudsMidsummerTropics
Book:Jane Eyre (World Classics, Unabridged)
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“Sometimes I have the strangest feeling about you. Especially when you are near me as you are now. It feels as though I had a string tied here under my left rib where my heart is, tightly knotted to you in a similar fashion. And when you go to Ireland, with all that distance between us, I am afraid that this cord will be snapped, and I shall bleed inwardly.”

FeelsHeartSometimesFeelingsLeftFashionMy HeartDistanceStringsIrelandTiedCordsRibs
Author:Charlotte Bronte
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“God surely did not create us, and cause us to live, with the sole end of wishing always to die. I believe, in my heart, we were intended to prize life and enjoy it, so long as we retain it. Existence never was originally meant to be that useless, blank, pale, slow-trailing thing it often becomes to many, and is becoming to me, among the rest.”

BelieveHeartLongEndsDiesI BelieveWishCausesEnjoyExistenceBecomingMy HeartI Believe InOptimisticUselessPrizeMeant To BeSolePaleBlankSteadfastness
Book:Shirley: Easyread Edition
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“I had not seen "Pride and Prejudice," till I read that sentence of yours, and then I got the book. And what did I find? An accurate daguerreotyped portrait of a common-place face; a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright, vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses.”

ShouldBookCountryFacesHouseCommonAirFlowerPrideGardenPrejudiceBlueSentencesHillsBordersGentlemanDelicateAccuratePortraitsGlancesElegantVividConfinedNeatFresh AirLadies And GentlemenPhysiognomyDelicate Flower
Author:Charlotte Bronte
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“But this I know; the writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always master--something that at times strangely wills and works for itself. He may lay down rules and devise principles, and to rules and principles it will perhaps for years lie in subjection; and then, haply without any warning of revolt, there comes a time when it will no longer consent.”

KnowsYearsMayLyingPrinciplesCreativeMastersLaysWarningConsentRevoltThere Comes A TimeSubjection
Book:Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey: In Two Volumes
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“Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine. May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agised as in that hour left my lips: for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love.”

FeelsHeartMayEyeEvilLeftHeavenFeltHoursPrayerTearsMinesReaderIntegrityHeartbreakInstrumentsLipsLike MeAppealsGentleHopelessDreadShedStormy
Book:The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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“I thank my Maker, that in the midst of judgment he has remembered mercy. I humbly entreat my Redeemer to give me strength to lead henceforth a purer life than I have done hitherto.”

GivingDoneJudgmentMercyGive MeRememberedMidstMakersRedeemerGive Me Strength
Book:The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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“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.”

HandsSufferingHateLeftStrongForgetEmotionForgivenessForgivingLongingRageInjuryBitternessYearningVengeanceAversionRuthForgive And ForgetAmityHappy Things
Book:The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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“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.”

IfsNeedsGivingShouldI CanSoulSelfBornAliveCircumstancesSellsDelightTreasureMy SoulBlissSelf RespectInward
Book:The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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“I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously revived, great and strong! He made me love him without looking at me.”

KnowsFirstsMadeSoulHardStrongViewsReaderAffectionMy SoulJaneGerms
Book:The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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“To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil when I find out they have neither souls nor hearts — when they open to me a perspective of flatness, triviality, and perhaps imbecility, coarseness, and ill-temper: but to the clear eye and eloquent tongue, to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends but does not break — at once supple and stable, tractable and consistent — I am ever tender and true. (Mr Rochester to Jane)”

HeartDoeMadeSoulCharacterEyeFacesBreakClearFirePerspectivePleaseDevilIllTongueConsistentTemperStableJaneEloquentTrivialityPlease MeSuppleImbecilityRochesterClear EyesMr RochesterFlatness
Book:The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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