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
Little Jane's love would have been my best reward, without it, my heart is broken.
Unlawful pleasure, trenching on another's rights, is delusive and envenomed pleasureits hollowness disappoints at the time, its poison cruelly tortures afterwards, its effects deprave forever.
I like rudeness a great deal better than flattery.
I shall be thirty-one next birthday. My youth is gone like a dream; and very little use have I ever made of it. What have I done these last thirty years? Precious little.
Rochester: "I am no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut-tree in Thornfield orchard…And what right would that ruin have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with freshness?" Jane: "You are no ruin sir - no lighting-struck tree: you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because your strength offers them so safe a prop.
I can only say with deeper sincerity and fuller significance what I have always said in theory Wait God's will.
Jane! will you hear reason?' (he stooped and approached his lips to my ear) 'because, if you won't, I'll try violence.
I can but die. . . and I believe in God. Let me try and wait His will in silence.
I wish I had only offered you a sovereign instead of ten pounds. Give me back nine pounds, Jane; I’ve a use for it. ' 'And so have I, sir,' I returned, putting my hands and my purse behind me. 'I could not spare the money on any account. ' 'Little niggard!' said he, 'refusing me a pecuniary request! Give me five pounds, Jane. ' 'Not five shillings, sir; nor five pence. ' 'Just let me look at the cash. ' 'No, sir; you are not to be trusted.
As far as my experience of matrimony goes -- I think it tends to draw you out of, and away from yourself.
Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at it for myself. We were born to strive and endure - you as well as I: do so. You will forget me before I forget you.
To prolong doubt was to prolong hope.
It is always the way of events in this life,. . . no sooner have you got settled in a pleasant resting place, than a voice calls out to you to rise and move on, for the hour of repose is expired.
Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs.
What the deuce is to do now?
Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last.
Better to try all things and find all empty, than to try nothing and leave your life a blank.
A depressing and difficult passage has prefaced every page I have turned in life.
Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are), you don't know what you are talking about; you misjudge me again: it is not because she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you think I should hate you?