Best Of Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre"
Here is a selection of memorable quotes from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.
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| Painting above: Self-Portrait (1930) by Frida Kahlo, my OG mixed-race gal |
I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped;
for liberty I uttered a prayer;
it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing.
p.81
Women are supposed to be very calm generally:
but women feel just as men feel;
they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts
as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint,
too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer;
and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures
to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings,
to playing on the piano and embroidering bags.
It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them,
if they seek to do more or learn more than custom
has pronounced necessary for their sex.
p. 104
LOL oh Jane:
I had hardly ever seen a handsome youth; never in my life spoken to one.
I had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty, elegance, gallantry, fascination;
but had I met those qualities incarnate in masculine shape,
I should have known instinctively that they neither had nor could have sympathy
with anything in me, and should have shunned them as one would
fire, lightning, or anything else that is bright but antipathetic.
p.108
I like this day; I like that sky of steel;
I like the sternness and stillness of the world under this frost.
p.134
It is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them,
which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it;
and, if discovered and responded to,
must lead, ignis-fatuus-like,
into miry wilds whence there is no extrication.
p. 153
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.
p.191
I had forgotten to draw my curtain, which I usually did,
and also to let down my window-blind.
The consequence was, that when the moon, which was full and bright
(for the night was fine), came in her course to that space in
the sky opposite my casement, and looked in at me through unveiled panes,
her glorious gaze roused me.
Awaking in the dead of night, I opened my eyes on her disk- silver-white and crystal clear.
It was beautiful but too solemn;
I half-rose, and stretched to draw the curtain.
p.195
This is what I'm shouting into the melee the next time I have an argument with my mum and sister:
Ladies, keep off, or I shall wax dangerous.
p.196
Presentiments are strange things! and so are sympathies;
and so are signs; and the three combined
make one mystery to which humanity has not yet found the key.
p.208
But he smiled at me with a certain smile he had of his own,
and which he used but on rare occasions.
He seemed to think it too good for common purposes:
it was the real sunshine of feeling--he shed it over me now.
p.231
This was very pleasant; there is no happiness like that
of being loved by your fellow-creatures,
and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.
p.231
I can never get enough of Brontë feels:
My nerves vibrated to those low-spoken words
as they had never vibrated to thunder--
my blood felt their subtle violence as it had never felt frost or fire,
but I was collected, and in no danger of swooning.
p.272
Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation:
they are for such moments as this, when body and soul may rise
in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they;
inviolate they shall be.
If at my individual convenience I might break them,
what would be their worth?
p.296
Reserved people often really need the frank discussion
of their sentiments and griefs more than the expansive.
p.349
Again the surprised expression crossed his face.
He had not imagined that a woman would dare to speak so to a man.
For me, I felt at home in this sort of discourse.
I could never rest in communication wth strong, discreet, and refined minds,
whether male or female, till i had passed the outworks of conventional reserve,
and crossed the threshold of confidence,
and won a place by their heart's very hearthstone.
p.351
There are no such things as marble kisses or ice kisses,
or I should say my ecclesiastical cousin's salute belonged to one of these classes;
but there may be experiment kisses, and his was an experiment kiss.
p.372
All men of talent, whether they be men of feeling or not;
whether they be zealots, or aspirants, or despots--
provided only they be sincere--
have their sublime moments,
when they subdue and rule.
p.390
It was my time to assume ascendency.
My powers were in play and in force.
I told him to forbear question or remark;
I desired him to leave me: I must and would be alone.
p.391
