Anne Bronte Quotes

All our talents increase in the using, and every faculty, both good and bad, strengthens by exercise: therefore, if you choose to use the bad, or those which tend to evil till they become your masters, and neglect the good till they dwindle away, you have only yourself to blame. ~ Anne Bronte

If ever I am a mother I will zealously strive against this crime of over- indulgence. I can hardly give it a milder name when I think of the evils it brings. ~ Anne Bronte

Whatever was wrong, in either her or her brother, he would encourage by laughing at, if not by actually praising: people little know the injury they do to children by laughing at their faults, and making a pleasant jest of what their true friends have endeavoured to teach them to hold in grave abhorrence. ~ Anne Bronte

But our wishes are like tinder: the flint and steel of circumstances are continually striking out sparks, which vanish immediately, unless they chance to fall upon the tinder of our wishes; then, they instantly ignite, and the flame of hope is kindled in a moment. ~ Anne Bronte

I see that a man cannot give himself up to drinking without being miserable one half his days and mad the other. ~ Anne Bronte

My nature was not originally calm,' said I. 'I have learned to appear so by dint of hard lessons and many repeated efforts. ~ Anne Bronte

And I imagine that, though cold and haughty in her general demeanor, and even exacting in her requirements, she has strong affections for those who can reach them ... ~ Anne Bronte

It is a woman's nature to be constant - to love one and one only, blindly, tenderly, and for ever - bless them, dear creatures! ~ Anne Bronte

The more happiness we bestow, the more we shall receive, even here; and the greater will be our reward in heaven when we rest from our labours. ~ Anne Bronte

Keep both heart and hand in your own possession, till you see good reason to part with them. ~ Anne Bronte

Well, to tell you the truth, I've thought of it often and often before, but he's such devilish good company is Huntingdon, after all - you can't imagine what a jovial good fellow he is when he's not fairly drunk, only just primed or half-seas-over - we all have a bit of a liking for him at the bottom of our hearts, though we can't respect him.'
'But should you wish yourself to be like him?'
'No, I'd rather be like myself, bad as I am. ~ Anne Bronte

I'm not going to defile my fingers with him,' said I, in answer to the maternal intercession. 'I wouldn't touch him with the tongs.' I ~ Anne Bronte

What constitutes virtue, Mrs Graham? Is it the circumstance of being able and willing to resist temptation; or that of having no temptations to resist? ~ Anne Bronte

Reading is my favourite occupation, when I have leisure for it and books to read. ~ Anne Bronte

Why so? one would think at such a time you would most exult in your privilege of being able to imitate the various brilliant and delightful touches of nature. ~ Anne Bronte

The best way to enjoy yourself is to do what is right and hate nobody. ~ Anne Bronte

I can conceive few situations more harassing than that wherein, however you may long for success, however you may labour to fulfil your duty, your efforts are baffled and set at nought by those beneath you, and unjustly censured and misjudged by those above. ~ Anne Bronte

I will give my whole heart and soul to my Maker if I can,' I answered, 'and not one atom more of it to you than He allows. What are you, sir, that you should set yourself up as a god, and presume to dispute possession of my heart with Him to whom I owe all I have and all I am, every blessing I ever did or ever can enjoy - and yourself among the rest - if you are a blessing, which I am half inclined to doubt. ~ Anne Bronte

I began this book with the intention of concealing nothing, that those who liked might have the benefit of perusing a fellow creature's heart: but we have some thoughts that all the angels in heaven are welcome to behold
but not our brother-men
not even the best and kindest amongst them. ~ Anne Bronte

I always lacked common sense when taken by suprise. ~ Anne Bronte

A few cold words on yonder stone,
A corpse as cold as they can be -­
Vain words, and mouldering dust, alone -­
Can this be all that's left of thee?

O, no! thy spirit lingers still
Where'er thy sunny smile was seen:
There's less of darkness, less of chill
On earth, than if thou hadst not been.

Thou breathest in my bosom yet,
And dwellest in my beating heart;
And, while I cannot quite forget,
Thou, darling, canst not quite depart. ~ Anne Bronte

Therefore, have done with this nonsense: you have no ground for hope: dismiss, at once, these hurtful thoughts and foolish wishes from your mind, and turn to your own duty, and the dull blank life that lies before you. You might have known such happiness was not for you. ~ Anne Bronte

When I tell you not to marry without love, I do not advise you to marry for love alone: there are many, many other things to be considered. Keep both heart and hand in your own possession, till you see good reason to part with them; and if such an occasion should never present itself, comfort your mind with this reflection, that though in single life your joys may not be very many, your sorrows, at least, will not be more than you can bear. Marriage may change your circumstances for the better, but, in my private opinion, it is far more likely to produce a contrary result. ~ Anne Bronte

Because I imagine there must be only a very, very few men in the world, that I should like to marry; and of those few, it is ten to one I may never be acquainted with one; or if I should, it is twenty to one he may not happen to be single, or to take a fancy to me. ~ Anne Bronte

Long have I dwelt forgotten here
In pining woe and dull despair;
This place of solitude and gloom
Must be my dungeon and my tomb. ~ Anne Bronte

I love the silent hour of night, for blissful dreams may then arise, revealing to my charmed sight what may not bless my waking eyes. ~ Anne Bronte

When she was gone, I felt as if there was to be no more fun - though it is difficult to say what she had contributed to the hilarity of the party. No jests, and little laughter, had escaped her lips; but her smile had animated my mirth; a keen observation or a cheerful word from her had insensibly sharpened my wits, and thrown an interest over all that was done and said by the rest. ~ Anne Bronte

A man must have something to grumble about; and if he can't complain that his wife harries him to death with her perversity and ill-humour, he must complain that she wears him out with her kindness and gentleness. ~ Anne Bronte

No one can be happy in eternal solitude. ~ Anne Bronte

I wondered why so much beauty should be given to those who made so bad a use of it, and denied to some who would make it a benefit to both themselves and others. ~ Anne Bronte

It is better to arm and strengthen your hero, than to disarm and enfeeble your foe. ~ Anne Bronte

My prayers, my tears, my wishes, fears, and lamentations, were witnessed by myself and heaven alone. When we are harassed by sorrows or anxieties, or long oppressed by any powerful feelings which we must keep to ourselves, for which we can obtain and seek no sympathy from any living creature, and which yet we cannot, or will not wholly crush, we often naturally seek relief in poetry - and often find it, too - whether in the effusions of others, which seem to harmonize with our existing case, or in our own attempts to give utterance to those thoughts and feelings in strains less musical, perchance, but more appropriate, and therefore more penetrating and sympathetic, and, for the time, more soothing, or more powerful to rouse and to unburden the oppressed and swollen heart. ~ Anne Bronte

The bud, though plucked, would not be withered, only transplanted to a fitter soil to ripen and blow beneath a brighter sun; and though I might not cherish and watch my child's unfolding intellect, he would be snatched away from all the suffering and sins of earth; and my understanding tells me this would be no great evil; but my heart shrinks from the contemplation of such a possibility, and whispers I could not bear to see him die. ~ Anne Bronte

In all we do, and hear, and see,
Is restless Toil and Vanity.
While yet the rolling earth abides,
Men come and go like ocean tides ~ Anne Bronte

This rose is not so fragrant as a summer flower, but it has stood through hardships none of them could bear: the cold rain of winter has sufficed to nourish it, and its faint sun to warm it; the bleak winds have not blanched it, or broken its stem, and the keen frost has not blighted it ... It is still fresh and blooming as a flower can be, with the cold snow even now on its petals. - Will you have it? ~ Anne Bronte

Well, let them seize on all they can;
One treasure still is mine,
A heart that loves to think on thee,
And feels the worth of thine. ~ Anne Bronte

Thank heaven, I am free and safe at last! ~ Anne Bronte

I would not send a poor girl into the world, ignorant of the snares that beset her path; nor would I watch and guard her, till, deprived of self-respect and self-reliance, she lost the power or the will to watch and guard herself. ~ Anne Bronte

But this gives no proper idea of my feelings at all; and no one that has not lived such a retired stationary life as mine, can possibly imagine what they were: hardly even if he has known what it is to awake some morning, and find himself in Port Nelson, in New Zealand, with a world of waters between himself and all that knew him. ~ Anne Bronte

I'll promise to think twice before I take any important step you seriously disapprove of. ~ Anne Bronte

I was not really angry: I felt for him all the time, and longed to be reconciled; but I determined he should make the first advances, or at least show some signs of an humble and contrite spirit, first; for, if I began, it would only minister to his self-conceit, increase his arrogance, and quite destroy the lesson I wanted to give him. ~ Anne Bronte

One glance he gave, one little smile at parting - it was but for a moment; but therein I read, or thought I read, a meaning that kindled in my heart a brighter flame of hope than had ever yet arisen. ~ Anne Bronte

I had been seasoned by adversity, and tutored by experience, and I longed to redeem my lost honour in the eyes of those whose opinion was more than that of all the world to me. ~ Anne Bronte

I shall say that he is mistaken in supposing that I can regret the birth of my daughters, (who have been the pride of my life, and are likely to be the comfort of my old age), or the thirty years I have passed in the company of my best and dearest friend;–that, had our misfortunes been three times as great as they were, (unless they had been of my bringing on,) I should still the more rejoice to have shared them with your father, and administered what consolation I was able; and, had his sufferings in illness been ten times what they were, I could not regret having watched over and laboured to relieve them–that, if he had married a richer wife, misfortunes and trials would no doubt have come upon him still, while–I am egotist enough to imagine that no other woman could have cheered him through them so well–not that I am superior to the rest, but I was made for him, and he for me; and I can no more repent the hours–days–years of happiness we have spent together, and which neither could have had without the other, than I can the privilege of having been his nurse in sickness, and his comfort in affliction. ~ Anne Bronte

She left me, offended at my want of sympathy, and thinking, no doubt, that I envied her. I did not - at least, I firmly believed I did not. ~ Anne Bronte

The ties that bind us to life are tougher than you imagine, or than any one can who has not felt how roughly they may be pulled without breaking. ~ Anne Bronte

I hate talking where there is no exchange of ideas or sentiments, and no good given or received ~ Anne Bronte

He had not breathed a word of love, or dropped one hint of tenderness or affection, and yet I had been supremely happy. To be near him, to hear him talk as he did talk, and to feel that he thought me worthy to be so spoken to - capable of understanding and duly appreciating such discourse - was enough. ~ Anne Bronte

There is perfect love in Heaven! ~ Anne Bronte

True benevolence and gentle, considerate kindness. ~ Anne Bronte

I beg your pardon, Mrs. Graham - but you get on too fast. I have not yet said that a boy should be taught to rush into the snares of life, - or even wilfully to seek temptation for the sake of exercising his virtue by overcoming it; - I only say that it is better to arm and strengthen your hero, than to disarm and enfeeble the foe; - and if you were to rear an oak sapling in a hothouse, tending it carefully night and day, and shielding it from every breath of wind, you could not expect it to become a hardy tree, like that which has grown up on the mountain-side, exposed to all the action of the elements, and not even sheltered from the shock of the tempest.'

'Granted; - but would you use the same argument with regard to a girl?'

'Certainly not.'

'No; you would have her to be tenderly and delicately nurtured, like a hot-house plant - taught to cling to others for direction and support, and guarded, as much as possible, from the very knowledge of evil. But will you be so good as to inform me why you make this distinction? Is it that you think she has no virtue?'

'Assuredly not.'

'Well, but you affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation; - and you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation, or too little acquainted with vice, or anything connected therewith. It must be either that you think she is essentially so vicious, or so feeble-minded, that she cannot withstand temptation, - and though she may ~ Anne Bronte

Of him to whom less is given, less will be required, but our utmost exertions are required of us all. ~ Anne Bronte

Our children, Edward, Agnes, and little Mary, promise well; their education, for the time being, is chiefly committed to me; and they shall want no good thing that a mother's care can give.
Our modest income is amply sufficient for our requirements; and by practising the economy we learnt in harder times, and never attempting to imitate our richer neighbours, we manage not only to enjoy comfort and contentment ourselves, but to have every year something to lay by for our children, and something to give to those who need it.
And now I think I have said sufficient. ~ Anne Bronte

You need not fear me, for I not only should think it wrong to marry a man that was deficient in sense or in principle, but I should never be tempted to do it; for I could not like him, if he were ever so handsome, and ever so charming, in other respects; I should hate him - despise him - pity him - anything but love him. My affections not only ought to be founded on approbation, but they will and must be so: for, without approving, I cannot love. It is needless to say, I ought to be able to respect and honour the man I marry, as well as love him, for I cannot love him without. ~ Anne Bronte

His heart was like a sensitive plant, that opens for a moment in the sunshine, but curls up and shrinks into itself at the slightest touch of the finger, or the lightest breath of wind. ~ Anne Bronte

It is foolish to wish for beauty. Sensible people never either desire it for themselves or care about it in others. If the mind be but well cultivated, and the heart well disposed, no one ever cares for the exterior. ~ Anne Bronte

God might awaken that heart, supine and stupefied with self-indulgence, and remove the film of sensual darkness from his eyes, but I could not. ~ Anne Bronte

I have no objection whatever to your representing me as a little eccentric, since you and your learned friends would have it so; only don't set me on in my fury to burning hearthrugs, sawing the backs off chairs, and tearing my wife's silk gowns... Had I been numbered amongst the calm, concentric men of the world, I should not have been as I now am, and I should in all probability never have had such children as mine have been. ~ Patrick Bronte

It is natural for our unamiable sex to dislike the creatures, for you ladies lavish so many caresses upon them. ~ Anne Bronte

I still preserve those relics of past sufferings and experience, like pillars of witness set up in travelling through the valve of life, to mark particular occurrences. The footsteps are obliterated now; the face of the country may be changed; but the pillar is still there, to remind me how all things were when it was reared. ~ Anne Bronte

Keep guard over your eyes and ears as the inlets of your heart, and over your lips as the outlets, lest they betray you in a moment of unwariness. ~ Anne Bronte

It is foolish to which for beauty. Sensible people never either desire it for themselves, or care about it in others. If the mind be but well cultivated, and the heart well disposed, no one ever cares for the exterior. So said the teachers of our childhood; and so say we to the children of the present day, all very judicious and proper, no doubt; but such assertions supported by actual experience? ~ Anne Bronte

I was infatuated once with a foolish, besotted affection, that clung to him in spite of his unworthiness, but it is fairly gone now
wholly crushed and withered away; and he has none but himself and his vices to thank for it. ~ Anne Bronte

But smiles and tears are so alike with me, they are neither of them confined to any particular feelings: I often cry when I am happy, and smile when I am sad. ~ Anne Bronte

Well, and what was there in that?
Who ever hung his hopes upon so frail a twig? ~ Anne Bronte

What a fool you must be, said my head to my heart, or my sterner to my softer self. ~ Anne Bronte

Chess-players are so unsociable, they are no company for any but themselves. ~ Anne Bronte

You say you cannot love God; but it strikes me that if you rightly consider who and what He is, you cannot help it. He is your father, your best friend: every blessing, everything good, pleasant, or useful, comes from Him; and everything evil, everything you have reason to hate, to shun, or to fear, comes from Satan- HIS enemy as well as ours. And for this cause was God manifest in the flesh, that He might destroy the works of the Devil: in one word, God is love; and the more of love we have within us, the nearer we are to Him and the more of His spirit we possess. ~ Anne Bronte

But where hope rises, fear must lurk behind. ~ Anne Bronte

Truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it. But as the priceless treasure too frequently hides at the bottom of a well, it needs some courage to dive for it, especially as he that does so will be likely to incur more scorn and obloquy for the mud and water into which he has ventured to plunge, than thanks for the jewel he procures; ~ Anne Bronte

I like my blood warm. I find cold blood as appetizing as an old stale cup of coffee. It's hard to choke down, but then again I'm finicky. ~ Gea Haff

You'll find a man can live without his money as merrily as a tortoise without its head, or a wasp without its body." '"But ~ Anne Bronte

governess was not in yet; then, ~ Anne Bronte

The end of Religion is not to teach us how to die, but how to live ... ~ Anne Bronte

The reprehensible presumption of individuals who attempted to think for themselves in matters connected with religion, or to be guided by their own interpretations of Scripture, ~ Anne Bronte

The brightest attractions to the lover too often prove the husband's greatest torments ~ Anne Bronte

They that have beauty, let them be thankful for it, and make a good use of it, let them console themselves, and do the best they can without it: certainly, though liable to be over-estimated, it is a gift of God, and not to be despised. Many will feel this who have felt that they could love, and whose hearts tell them that they are worthy to be loved again; while yet they are debarred, by the lack of this or some such seeming trifle, from giving and receiving that happiness they seem almost made to feel and to impart. As well might the humble glowworm despise that power of giving light without which the roving fly might pass her and repass her a thousand times, and never rest beside her: she might hear her winged darling buzzing over and around her; he vainly seeking her, she longing to be found, but with no power to make her presence known, no voice to call him, no wings to follow his flight;
the fly must seek another mate, the worm must live and die alone. ~ Anne Bronte

My heart is too thoroughly dried to be broken in a hurry, and I mean to live as long as I can. ~ Anne Bronte

But, God knows best, I concluded. ~ Anne Bronte

Keep a guard over your eyes and ears as the inlets of your heart, and over your lips as the outlet, lest they betray you in a moment of unwariness. Receive, coldly and dispassionately, every attention, till you have ascertained and duly considered the worth of the aspirant; and let your affections be consequent upon approbation alone. First study; then approve; then love. Let your eyes be blind to all external attractions, your ears deaf to all the fascinations of flattery and light discourse. - These are nothing - and worse than nothing - snares and wiles of the tempter, to lure the thoughtless to their own destruction. Principle is the first thing, after all; and next to that, good sense, respectability, and moderate wealth. If you should marry the handsomest, and most accomplished and superficially agreeable man in the world, you little know the misery that would overwhelm you if, after all, you should find him to be a worthless reprobate, or even an impracticable fool. ~ Anne Bronte

This paper will serve instead of a confidential friend into whose ear I might pour forth the overflowings of my heart. It will not sympathize with my distresses, but then, it will not laugh at them, and, if I keep it close, it cannot tell again; so it is, perhaps, the best friend I could have for the purpose. ~ Anne Bronte

I'll tell you a piece of news
I hope you have not heard it before: for good, bad, or indifferent, one always likes to be the first to tell. ~ Anne Bronte

I cannot love a man who cannot protect me. ~ Anne Bronte

If you would really study my pleasure, mother, you must consider your own comfort and convenience a little more than you do. ~ Anne Bronte

I longed to seek the retirement of my own room, or some sequestered nook in the grounds, that I might deliver myself up to my feelings - to weep my last farewell, and lament my false hopes and vain delusions. Only this once, and then adieu to fruitless dreaming - thenceforth, only sober, solid, sad reality should occupy my mind. ~ Anne Bronte

My cup of sweets is not unmingled: it is dashed with a bitterness that I cannot hide from myself, disguise it as I will. ~ Anne Bronte

What the world stigmatises as romantic, is often more nearly allied to the truth than is commonly supposed; for, if the generous ideas of youth are too often over-clouded by the sordid views of after-life, that scarcely proves them to be false. ~ Anne Bronte

Who had taken a violent fancy to me, mistaking me for something vastly better than I was. ~ Anne Bronte

One bright day in the last week of February, I was walking in the park, enjoying the threefold luxury of solitude, a book, and pleasant weather. ~ Anne Bronte

I have omitted to give a detail of his words, from a notion that they would not interest the reader as they did me, and not because I have forgotten them. ~ Anne Bronte

She was trusted and valued by her father, loved and courted by all dogs, cats, children, and poor people, and slighted and neglected by everybody else. ~ Anne Bronte

Oh, I am very weary, Though tears no longer flow; My eyes are tired of weeping, My heart is sick of woe. ~ Anne Bronte

I have often wished in vain,' said she, 'for another's judgment to appeal to when I could scarcely trust the direction of my own eye and head, they having been so long occupied with the contemplation of a single object as to become almost incapable of forming a proper idea respecting it.'
'That,' replied I, 'is only one of many evils to which a solitary life exposes us. ~ Anne Bronte

Already, I seemed to feel my intellect deteriorating, my heart petrifying, my soul contracting; and I
trembled lest my very moral perceptions should become deadened, my distinctions of right and wrong confounded, and all my better faculties be sunk, at last, beneath the baneful influence of such a mode of life. The gross vapors of earth were gathering around me, and closing in upon my inward heaven; and thus it was that Mr. Weston rose at length upon me, appearing like the morning star in my horizon, to save me from the fear of utter darkness; and I rejoiced that I now had a subject for contemplation that was above me, not beneath. ~ Anne Bronte

When we hear a little good and no harm of a person, it is easy and pleasant to imagine more: ~ Anne Bronte

Although I maintain that if she were more perfect, she would be less interesting. ~ Anne Bronte

There's nothing like active employment, I suppose, to console the afflicted. ~ Anne Bronte

Oh, I don't mind his being wicked: he's all the better for that; and as for disliking him - I shouldn't greatly object to being Lady Ashby of Ashby Park, if I must marry. But if I could be always young, I would be always single. I should like to enjoy myself thoroughly, and coquet with all the world, till I am on the verge of being called an old maid; and then, to escape the infamy of that, after having made ten thousand conquests, to break all their hearts save one, by marrying some high-born, rich, indulgent husband, whom, on the other hand, fifty ladies were dying to have.'

'Well, as long as you entertain these views, keep single by all means, and never marry at all: not even to escape the infamy of old-maidenhood. ~ Anne Bronte

A hardness such as this is taught by rough experience and despair alone ~ Anne Bronte

He cannot endure Rachel, because he knows she has a proper appreciation of him. ~ Anne Bronte