“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.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“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.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“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.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“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.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“My heart is too thoroughly dried to be broken in a hurry, and I mean to live as long as I can.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“You may think it all very fine, Mr. Huntingdon, to amuse yourself with rousing my jealousy; but take care you don't rouse my hate instead. And when you have once extinguished my love, you will find it no easy matter to kindle it again.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“[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.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“When I tell you not to marry without love, I do not advise you to marry for love alone: there are many, many other things to be considered. Keep both heart and hand in your own possession, till you see good reason to part with them; and if such an occasion should never present itself, comfort your mind with this reflection, that though in single life your joys may not be very many, your sorrows, at least, will not be more than you can bear. Marriage may change your circumstances for the better, but, in my private opinion, it is far more likely to produce a contrary result.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“I would rather have your friendship than the love of any other woman in the world.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“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.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“He never could have loved me, or he would not have resigned me so willingly”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“Keep a guard over your eyes and ears as the inlets of your heart, and over your lips as the outlet, lest they betray you in a moment of unwariness. Receive, coldly and dispassionately, every attention, till you have ascertained and duly considered the worth of the aspirant; and let your affections be consequent upon approbation alone. First study; then approve; then love. Let your eyes be blind to all external attractions, your ears deaf to all the fascinations of flattery and light discourse. - These are nothing - and worse than nothing - snares and wiles of the tempter, to lure the thoughtless to their own destruction. Principle is the first thing, after all; and next to that, good sense, respectability, and moderate wealth. If you should marry the handsomest, and most accomplished and superficially agreeable man in the world, you little know the misery that would overwhelm you if, after all, you should find him to be a worthless reprobate, or even an impracticable fool.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“There is such a thing as looking through a person's eyes into the heart, and learning more of the height, and breadth, and depth of another's soul in one hour than it might take you a lifetime to discover, if he or she were not disposed to reveal it, or if you had not the sense to understand it.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“I will give my whole heart and soul to my Maker if I can,' I answered, 'and not one atom more of it to you than He allows. What are you, sir, that you should set yourself up as a god, and presume to dispute possession of my heart with Him to whom I owe all I have and all I am, every blessing I ever did or ever can enjoy - and yourself among the rest - if you are a blessing, which I am half inclined to doubt.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“Although I maintain that if she were more perfect, she would be less interesting.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“Is it that they think it a duty to be continually talking,' pursued she: 'and so never pause to think, but fill up with aimless trifles and vain repetitions when subjects of real interest fail to present themselves? - or do they really take a pleasure in such discourse?'
'Very likely they do,' said I; 'their shallow minds can hold no great ideas, and their light heads are carried away by trivialities that would not move a better-furnished skull; - and their only alternative to such discourse is to plunge over head and ears into the slough of scandal - which is their chief delight.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“Preserve me from such cordiality! It is like handling briar-roses and may-blossoms - bright enough to the eye, and outwardly soft to the touch, but you know there are thorns beneath, and every now and then you feel them too; and perhaps resent the injury by crushing them in till you have destroyed their power, though somewhat to the detriment of your own fingers.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“I was not really angry: I felt for him all the time, and longed to be reconciled; but I determined he should make the first advances, or at least show some signs of an humble and contrite spirit, first; for, if I began, it would only minister to his self-conceit, increase his arrogance, and quite destroy the lesson I wanted to give him.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“He is very fond of me, almost too fond. I could do with less caressing and more rationality. I should like to be less of a pet and more of a friend, if I might choose; but I won't complain of that: I am only afraid his affection loses in depth where it gains in ardour. I sometimes liken it to a fire of dry twigs and branches compared with one of solid coal, very bright and hot; but if it should burn itself out and leave nothing but ashes behind.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“if I hate the sins, I love the sinner, and would do much for his salvation”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“I see that a man cannot give himself up to drinking without being miserable one-half his days and mad the other.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“What is it that constitutes virtue, Mrs. Graham? Is it the circumstance of being able and willing to resist temptation; or that of having no temptations to resist? - Is he a strong man that overcomes great obstacles and performs surprising achievements, though by dint of great muscular exertion, and at the risk of some subsequent fatigue, or he that sits in his chair all day, with nothing to do more laborious than stirring the fire, and carrying his food to his mouth? 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.'
'I will lead him by the hand, Mr. Markham, till he has strength to go alone; and I will clear as many stones from his path as I can, and teach him to avoid the rest - or walk firmly over them, as you say; - for when I have done my utmost, in the way of clearance, there will still be plenty left to exercise all the agility, steadiness, and circumspection he will ever have. - It is all very well to talk about noble resistance, and trials of virtue; but for fifty - or five hundred men that have yielded to temptation, show me one that has had virtue to resist. And why should I take it for granted that my son will be one in a thousand? - and not rather prepare for the worst, and suppose he will be like his - like the rest of mankind, unless I take care to prevent it?”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“If we can only speak to slander our betters, let us hold our tongues.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“No one can be happy in eternal solitude.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“there is always a but in this imperfect world!”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“When a lady condescends to apologise, there is no keeping one’s anger.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“I possess the faculty of enjoying the company of those I - of my friends as well in silence as in conversation.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“I cannot get him to write or speak in real, solid earnest. I don't much mind it now, but if it be always so, what shall I do with the serious part of myself?”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
“When I tell you not to marry without love, I do not advise you to marry for love alone - there are many, many other things to be considered.”
― Anne Brontë, quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Anne Brontë
Born place: in Thornton, Yorkshire, The United Kingdom
Born date January 17, 1820
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“When two members of a family or two intimate friends are separated, and one goes abroad and one remains at home, the return of the relative or friend who has been travelling always seems to place the relative or friend who has been staying at home at a painful disadvantage when the two first meet. The sudden encounter of the new thoughts and new habits eagerly gained in the one case, with the old thoughts and old habits passively preserved in the other, seems at first to part the sympathies of the most loving relatives and the fondest friends, and to set a sudden strangeness, unexpected by both and uncontrollable by both, between them on either side.”
― Wilkie Collins, quote from The Woman in White
“instead, we just sat there, together but really apart, watching a show about a stranger and all her secrets, while keeping our own to ourselves, as always.”
― Sarah Dessen, quote from Just Listen
“[A]ny species that exempts itself from the rules of competition ends up destroying the community in order to support its own expansion.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit
“For that moment I touched an emotion beyond the common range of men, yet one the poor brutes we dominate know only too well. I felt as a rabbit might feel returning to his burrow, and suddenly confronted by the work of a dozen busy navvies digging the foundations of a house. I felt the first inkling of a thing that presently grew quite clear in my mind, that oppressed me for many days, a sense of dethronement, a persuasion that I was no longer master, but an animal among animals; under the Martian heel.”
― H.G. Wells, quote from The War of the Worlds
“You could start a fire with the heat between you two."
"You're mistaking bitter animosity for heartfelt affection.”
― Michelle Hodkin, quote from The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer
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