Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! – I have as much soul as you, – and full as much heart! And if...

And it is you, spirit–with will and energy, and virtue and purity–that I want, not alone with your brittle frame.

Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs.” –...

Human beings must love something, and, in the dearth of worthier objectsof affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing afaded graven image, shabby as a miniature scarecrow. It puzzles me nowto...

I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss.

I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.

I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind, and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to be uneducated, to grow up like one of the...

Such is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd’s can only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full...

Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you.

He made me love him without looking at me.

…[M]y inner self moved; my spirit shook its always-fettered wings half loose. I had a sudden feeling as if I, who never yet truly lived, were at last about to taste life.

You, Jane, I must have you for my own–entirely my own.

Where the bodily presence is weak and the speech contemptible, surely there cannot be error in making written language the medium of better utterance than faltering lips can achieve?

I tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon.

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

Amid the worry of a self- condemnatory soliloquy, his demeanour seemed grave, perhaps cold, both to me and his mother. And yet there was no bad feeling, no malice, no rancour, no littleness in his...

Je fais mon lit et mon ménage; I seek my dinner in a restaurant; my supper takes care, of itself; I pass days laborious and loveless; nights long and lonely; I am ferocious, and bearded...

the horizon bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly white.

I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.

Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour … If at my convenience...

I had wanted to compromise with Fate: to escape occasional great agonies by submitting to a whole life of privation and small pains.

Friends always forget those whom fortune forsakes.

Conventionality is not morality.

I had not, it seems, the originality to chalk out a new road to shame and destruction, but trode the old track with stupid exactness not to deviate an inch from the beaten centre. 

Decidedly he has had too much wine,’ I thought

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined...

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...

I knew you would do me good in some way, at some time–I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you.

I sought her eye, desirous to read there the intelligence which I could not discern in her face or hear in her conversation; it was merry, rather small; by turns I saw vivacity, vanity, coquetry,...

A child cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had done, cannot give its furious feelings uncontrolled play, as I had given mine, without experiencing afterwards the pang of remorse and the chill of reaction....

Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of the third storey, backwards and forwards, safe in the silence and solitude of the spot, and allow my mind’s eye to dwell on whatever...

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:...

Was I gleeful, settled, content, during the hours I passed in yonder bare, humble schoolroom this morning and afternoon? Not to decieve myself, I must reply — No: I felt desolate to a degree. I...

… your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me…

I will bestir myself,’ was her resolution, ‘and try to be wise if I cannot be good.

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.

I think if Eternity held torment, its form would not be fiery rack, nor its nature, despair. I think that on a certain day amongst those days which never dawned, and will not set, an...

There are certain phrases potent to make my blood boil — improper influence! What old woman’s cackle is that?””Are you a young lady?””I am a thousand times better: I am an honest woman, and as...

Oh, mention it! If I storm, you have the art of weeping.””Mr. Rochester, I must leave you.””For how long, Jane? For a few minutes, while you smooth your hair — which is somewhat dishevelled; and...

Your will shall decide your destiny.

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.

Do you like him much?’I told you I liked him a little. Where is the use of caring for him so very much: he is full of faults.’Is he?’All boys are.

I stood lonely enough, but to that feeling of isolation I was accustomed: it did not oppress me much.

I never met your likeness. Jane: you please me, and you master me – you seem to submit, and I like the sense of pliancy you impart; and while I am twining the soft, silken...

I believe in some blending of hope and sunshine sweetening the worst lots. I believe that this life is not all; neither the beginning nor the end. I believe while I tremble; I trust while...

My future husband was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man...

The charm of variety there was not, nor the excitement of incident; but I liked peace so well, and sought stimulus so little, that when the latter came I almost felt it a disturbance, and...

Divine justice pursued its course; disasters came thick on me: I was forced to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. His chastisements are mighty; and one smote me which has humbled me...

I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold the principles received by me...

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...