I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot af… - Charlotte Brontë

A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow.

I had wanted to compromise with Fate: to escape occasional great agonies by submitting to a whole life of privation and small pains.

Human beings must love something, and, in the dearth of worthier objects
of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a
faded graven image, shabby as a miniature scarecrow. It puzzles me now
to remember with what absurd sincerity I doated on this little toy, half
fancying it alive and capable of sensation. I could not sleep unless it was
folded in my night-gown; and when it lay there safe and warm, I was
comparatively happy, believing it to be happy likewise.