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02Undated
Already, I seemed to feel my intellect deteriorating, my heart petrifying, my soul contracting; and Itrembled lest my very moral perceptions should become deadened, my distinctions of right and wrong confounded, and all my better faculties be sunk, at last, beneath the baneful influence of such a mode of life. The gross vapors of earth were gathering around me, and closing in upon my inward heaven; and thus it was that Mr. Weston rose at length upon me, appearing like the morning star in my horizon, to save me from the fear of utter darkness; and I rejoiced that I now had a subject for contemplation that was above me, not beneath.
Anne Brontë / quote
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04Undated
I am sorry, Miss Grey, you should think it necessary to interfere with Master Bloomfield's amusements; he was very much distressed about you destroying the birds.''When Master Bloomfield's amusements consist in injuring sentient creatures,' I answered, 'I think it my duty to interfere.''You seemed to have forgotten,' said she, calmly, 'that the creatures were all created for our convenience.'I thought that doctrine admitted some doubt, but merely replied - 'If they were, we have no right to torment them for our amusement.
Anne Brontë / quote
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06Undated
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
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08Undated
how shall I get through the months or years of my future life, in company with that man -- my greatest enemy -- for none could injure me as he has done? Oh! when I think how fondly, how foolishly I have loved him, how madly I have trusted him, how constantly I have laboured, and studied, and prayed, and struggled for his advantage, and how cruelly he has trampled on my love, betrayed my trust, scorned my prayers and tears, and efforts for his preservation --crushed my hopes, destroyed my youth's best feelings, and doomed me to a life of hopeless misery -- as far as man can do it -- it is not enough to say that I no longer love my husband -- I HATE him! The word stares me in the face like a guilty confession, but it is true: I hate him -- I hate him!
Anne Brontë / quote
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11Undated
The human heart is like india-rubber; a little swells it, but a great deal will not burst it. If "little more than nothing will disturb it, little less than all things will suffice" to break it. As in the outer members of our frame, there is a vital power inherent in itself that strengthens it against external violence. Every blow that shakes it will serve to harden it against a future stroke; as constant labour thickens the skin of the hand, and strengthens its muscles instead of wasting them away: so that a day of arduous toil, that might excoriate a lady's palm, would make no sensible impression on that of a hardy ploughman.
Anne Brontë / quote
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17Undated
My prayers, my tears, my wishes, fears, and lamentations, were witnessed by myself and heaven alone. When we are harassed by sorrows or anxieties, or long oppressed by any powerful feelings which we must keep to ourselves, for which we can obtain and seek no sympathy from any living creature, and which yet we cannot, or will not wholly crush, we often naturally seek relief in poetry—and often find it, too—whether in the effusions of others, which seem to harmonize with our existing case, or in our own attempts to give utterance to those thoughts and feelings in strains less musical, perchance, but more appropriate, and therefore more penetrating and sympathetic, and, for the time, more soothing, or more powerful to rouse and to unburden the oppressed and swollen heart.
Anne Brontë / quote
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18Undated
Though riches had charms, poverty had no terrors for an inexperiencedgirl like me. Indeed, to say the truth, there was something exhilaratingin the idea of being driven to straits, and thrown upon our own resources.I only wished papa, mamma, and Mary were all of the samemind as myself; and then, instead of lamenting past calamities we mightall cheerfully set to work to remedy them; and the greater the difficulties,the harder our present privations, the greater should be our cheerfulness to endure the latter, and our vigour to contend against the former.
Anne Brontë / quote
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