827 Quotes by Charlotte Brontë

But I feel this, Helen: I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.

It would take a great deal to crush me

I would have got past Mr. Rochester's chamber without pause; but my heart momentarily stopping its beat at that threshold, my foot was forced to stop also.  No sleep was there: the inmate was walking restlessly from wall to wall; and again and again he sighed while I listened.  There was a heaven-a temporary heaven-in this room for me if I chose.

... и когда в камине оставалась только кучка редеющей золы, я торопливо раздевалась, дергая изо всех сил шнурки и тесемки, и искала защиты от холода и мрака в своей кроватке. Я всегда клала с собой куклу: каждое человеческое существо должно что-нибудь любить, и, за неимением более достойных предметов для этого чувства, я находила радость в привязанности к облезлой, дешевой кукле, скорее похожей на маленькое огородное пугало.

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; ...

St. John’s eyes, though clear enough in a literal sense, in a figurative one were difficult to fathom.  He seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other people’s thoughts, than as agents to reveal his own: the which combination of keenness and reserve was considerably more calculated to embarrass than to encourage.

Posso vivere sola, se il rispetto per me stessa e le circostanze me lo richiederanno. Non mi è necessario vendere l’anima per comprare la felicità. Ho un tesoro interiore, nato insieme a me, che può mantenermi viva anche se tutti i piaceri esterni mi verranno negati; o offerti ad un prezzo che non potrò accettare.

Postoje stanovite ličnosti koje uzajamno utječu jedna na drugu, i to tako da što više govore, to više imaju reći jedno drugome. Kod njih se iz združivanja razvija privrženost, a iz privrženosti sjedinjavanje.

The Eastern allusion bit me again.  “I’ll not stand you an inch in the stead of a seraglio,” I said; “so don’t consider me an equivalent for one.  If you have a fancy for anything in that line, away with you, sir, to the bazaars of Stamboul without delay, and lay out in extensive slave-purchases some of that spare cash you seem at a loss to spend satisfactorily here.