Quote collection
374 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"A reader kindly pointed out to me recently that most of the quotes I include are by men. And it's true. Personally, I don't even consider whether the author is male or female, nor even care much who the author is - what's significant is the message. Of course, women are equally capable of great insights, however in our culture it's not so long ago that women could not even be published"
"I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead, you must be sure and not grieve: there is nothing to grieve about. We all must die one day, and the illness which is removing me is not painful; it is gentle and gradual: my mind is at rest. I leave no one to regret me much: I have only a father; and he is lately married, and will not miss me. By dying young, I shall escape great sufferings. I had not qualities or talents to make my way very well in the world: I should have been continually at fault."
"There is a perverse mood of the mind which is rather soothed than irritated by misconstruction; and in quarters where we can never be rightly known, we take pleasure, I think, in being consummately ignored. What honest man on being casually taken for a housebreaker does not feel rather tickled than vexed at the mistake?"
"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."
"Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my home—my only home."
"Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good deed in my life — if ever I thought a good thought—if ever I prayed a sincere and blameless prayer — if ever I wished a righteous wish — I am rewarded now. To be your wife is, for me, to be as happy as I can be on earth."
"What necessity is there to dwell on the Past, when the Present is so much surer-the Future so much brighter?"
"What the deuce is to do now?"
"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."
"I longed for a power of vision which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen: that I desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character, than was here within my reach."
"Now for the hitch in Jane's character,' he said at last, speaking more calmly than from his look I had expected him to speak. 'The reel of silk has run smoothly enough so far; but I always knew there would come a knot and a puzzle: here it is. Now for vexation, and exasperation, and endless trouble!"
"But I tell you - and mark my words - you will come some day to a craggy pass in the channel, where the whole of life's stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave into a calmer current."
"Intelligence and proper education will give you independence of spirit."
"While I loved, and while I was loved, what an existence I enjoyed!"
"To see and know the worst is to take from Fear her main advantage."
"Neither birth nor sex forms a limit to genius."
"Friends always forget those whom fortune forsakes."
"What delusion has come over me? What sweet madness has seized me?"
"But solitude is sadness.' 'Yes; it is sadness. Life, however, has worse than that. Deeper than melancholy lies heart-break."
"That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar."