Anne Brontë

If she were more perfect, she would be less interesting.

God have mercy on his miserable soul! and make him see and feel his guilt — I ask no other vengeance! If he could but fully know and truly feel my wrongs I should be well avenged, and I could freely pardon all.

If you would have your son to walk honorably 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.

I can't love it — what is there to love? It can't love me — or you either; it can't understand a single word you say to it, or feel one spark of gratitude for all your kindness. Wait till it can show some little affection for me, and then I'll see about loving it. At present it is nothing more than a little selfish, senseless sensualist, and if you see anything adorable in it, it's all very well — I only wonder how you can.

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.

I possess the faculty of enjoying the company of those I — of my friends as well in silence as in conversation.

If your wife gives you her heart, you must take it, thankfully, and use it well, and not pull it in pieces, and laugh in her face, because she cannot snatch it away.

A sinless God, for sinful men, Descends to suffer and to bleed; Hell must renounce its empire then; The price is paid, the world is freed, And Satan's self must now confess, That Christ has earned a Right to bless

Forgetfulness is not to be purchased with a wish; and I cannot bestow my esteem on all who desire it, unless they deserve it too.

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!

I ask not how remote the day Nor what the sinner's woe Before their dross is purged away, Enough for me to know That when the cup of wrath is drained, The metal purified, They'll cling to what they once disdained, And live by Him that died.

Instead of combating my slight prejudice against you as uncharitable, I mean to cherish it, until I am convinced that I have no reason to distrust this kind, insinuating friendship you are so anxious to push upon me.

He knows he is my sun, but when he chooses to withhold his light, he would have my sky to be all darkness; he cannot bear that I should have a moon to mitigate the deprivation.

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

If you had no higher motive than the approval of your fellow mortal, it would do you little good.