Quotes by the Brontë Sisters

Charlotte Brontë

• “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
• “I would always rather be happy than dignified.”
• “Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.”
• “All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence forever.”
• “There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.”

Emily Brontë

• “I have to remind myself to breathe -- almost to remind my heart to beat!”
• “Honest people don't hide their deeds.”
• “He shall never know I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made out of, his and mine are the same.”
• “I love the ground under his feet, and the air over his head, and everything he touches and every word he says. I love all his looks, and all his actions and him entirely and all together.”
• “The entire world is a collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her.”

Anne Brontë

• “But he who dares not grasp the thorn should never crave the rose.”
• “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.”
• “Although I maintain that if she were more perfect, she would be less interesting.”
• “All our talents increase in the using, and every faculty, both good and bad, strengthens by exercise.”
• “You prefer her faults to other people’s perfection.”