Anne Brontë Quotes

A hardness such as this is taught by rough experience and despair alone.

Where hope rises fear must lurk behind.

How sweet to feel its helpless form Depending thus on me alone! And while I hold it safe and warm What bliss to think it is my own! To feel my hand so kindly prest, To know myself beloved at last, To think my heart has found a rest, My life of solitude is past!

[B]eauty is that quality which, next to money, is generally the most attractive to the worst kinds of men; and, therefore, it is likely to entail a great deal of trouble on the possessor.

God will judge us by our own thoughts and deeds, not by what others say about us.

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.

Revenge! No — what good would that do? — it would make him no better, and me no happier.

Oh, Richard!" exclaimed she, on one occasion, "if you would but dismiss such gloomy subjects from your mind, you would live as long as any of us; at least you would live to see the girls married, and yourself a happy grandfather, with a canty old dame for your companion.

I have no horror of death: if I thought it inevitable I think I could quietly resign myself to the prospect ... But I wish it would please God to spare me not only for Papa's and Charlotte's sakes, but because I long to do some good in the world before I leave it. I have many schemes in my head for future practice – humble and limited indeed – but still I should not like them all to come to nothing, and myself to have lived to so little purpose. But God's will be done.

If you would have your son to walk honourably through the world, you must not attempt to clear the stones from his path, but teach him to walk firmly over them — not insist upon leading him by the hand, but let him learn to go alone.

To regret the exchange of earthly pleasures for the joys of heaven, is as if the grovelling caterpillar should lament that it must one day quit the nibbled leaf to soar aloft and flutter through the air, roving at will from flower to flower, sipping sweet honey from their cups, or basking in their sunny petals.

But he who dares not grasp the thorn
Should never crave the rose.

I see that a man cannot give himself up to drinking without being miserable one half his days and mad the other; besides, I like to enjoy my life at all sides and ends, which cannot be done by one that suffers himself to be the slave of a single propensity.

It is a troublesome thing this susceptibility to affronts where none are intended.

I will not allow myself to be worse than my fellows.