Charlotte Brontë Quotes - Page 2

Jane, be still; don't struggle so like a wild, frantic bird, that is rending its own plumage in its desperation.""I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you.

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.

Our power of being happy lies a good deal in ourselves, I believe.

Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine.

It is a pity that doing one's best does not always answer.

Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive.

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.

Do you wonder that I avow this to you? Know, that in the course of your future life you will often find yourself elected the involuntary confidant of your acquaintances' secrets: people will instinctively find out, as I have done, that it is not your forte to tell of yourself, but to listen while others talk of themselves; they will feel, too, that you listen with no malevolent scorn of their indiscretion, but with a kind of innate sympathy; not the less comforting and encouraging because it is very unobtrusive in its manifestations.""How do you know? -- how can you guess all this, sir?""I know it well; therefore I proceed almost as freely as if I were writing my thoughts in a diary.

My spirit is willing to do what is right; and my flesh, I hope, is strong enough to accomplish the will of Heaven

My sister Emily first declined. The details of her illness are deep-branded in my memory, but to dwell on them, either in thought or narrative, is not in my power. Never in all her life had she lingered over any task that lay before her, and she did not linger now. She sank rapidly. She made haste to leave us. Yet, while physically she perished, mentally, she grew stronger than we had yet known her. Day by day, when I saw with what a front she met suffering, I looked on her with anguish of wonder and love. I have seen nothing like it; but, indeed, I have never seen her parallel in anything. Stronger than a man, simpler than a child, her nature stood alone. The awful point was, that, while full of ruth for others, on herself she had no pity; the spirit inexorable to the flesh; from the trembling hand, the unnerved limbs, the faded eyes, the same service exacted as they had rendered in health. To stand by and witness this, and not dare to remonstrate, was pain no words can render.

Poverty, for me, is synonymous with degradation.

Thoughtful for Winter’s future sorrow,Its gloom and scarcity;Prescient to-day, of want to-morrow,Toiled quiet Memory.’Tis she that from each transient pleasureExtracts a lasting good;’Tis she that finds, in summer, treasureTo serve for winter’s food.And when Youth’s summer day is vanished,And Age brings Winter’s stress,Her stores, with hoarded sweets replenished,Life’s evening hours will bless.

Entering by the carré, a piece of mirror- glass, set in an oaken cabinet, repeated my image. It said I was changed: my cheeks and lips were sodden white, my eyes were glassy, and my eyelids swollen and purple.On rejoining my companions, I knew they all looked at me - my heart seemed discovered to them: I believed myself self-betrayed. Hideously certain did it seem that the very youngest of the school must guess why and for whom I despaired.