Top 15 Anne Brontë Quotes

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are or should be written for both men and women to read, and I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.

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.

What business had I to think of one that never thought of me?

I cannot love a man who cannot protect me.

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.

I was sorry for her; I was amazed, disgusted at her heartless vanity; 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.

But, God knows best, I concluded. There are, I suppose, some men as vain, as selfish, and as heartless as she is, and, perhaps, such women may be useful to punish them.

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.

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

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