Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
27 quotes
". . . you have blighted the promise of youth, and made my life a wilderness!"
". . . I should wish you to think more deeply, to look further, and aim higher than you do."
"But where hope rises, fear must lurk behind."
"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."
"There's nothing like active employment, I suppose, to console the afflicted."
"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 . . . ."
"My heart is too thoroughly dried to be broken in a hurry, and I mean to live as long as I can."
"The rose I gave you was an emblem of myheart,' said she; 'would you take it away andleave me here alone?' 'Would you give me your hand too, if I askedit?' 'Have I not said enough?"
"I may be permitted, like the doctors, to cure a greater evil by a less, for I shall not fall seriously in love with the young widow, I think, nor she with me - that's certain - but if I find a little pleasure in her society I may surely be allowed to seek it; and if the star of her divinity be bright enough to dim the lustre of Eliza's, so much the better, but I scarcely can think it"
"Two years hence you will be as calm as I am now, - and far, far happier, I trust, for you are a man and free to act as you please"
"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."
"I have often wished in vain,' said she, 'for another's judgment to appeal to when I could scarcely trust the direction of my own eye and head, they having been so long occupied with the contemplation of a single object as to become almost incapable of forming a proper idea respecting it.''That,' replied I, 'is only one of many evils to which a solitary life exposes us."
"When a lady condescends to apologise, there is no keeping one’s anger."
"I was infatuated once with a foolish, besotted affection, that clung to him in spite of his unworthiness, but it is fairly gone now--wholly crushed and withered away; and he has none but himself and his vices to thank for it."
"And so you prefer her faults to other people’s perfections?"
"I don’t know how to talk to you, Mrs. Huntingdon . . . you are only half a woman--your nature must be half human, half angelic. Such goodness overawes me; I don’t know what to make of it."
"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"
"I see that a man cannot give himself up to drinking without being miserable one-half his days and mad the other."
"I’ll tell you a piece of news--I hope you have not heard it before: for good, bad, or indifferent, one always likes to be the first to tell."
"To regret the exchange of earthly pleasures for the joys of Heaven, is as if the grovelling caterpillar should lament that it must one day quit the nibbled leaf to soar aloft and flutter through the air, roving at will from flower to flower, sipping sweet honey from their cups, or basking in their sunny petals. If these little creatures knew how great a change awaited them, no doubt they would regret it; but would not all such sorrow be misplaced?"
"Never! while heaven spares my reason,’ replied I, snatching away the hand he had presumed to seize and press between his own."
"God might awaken that heart, supine and stupefied with self-indulgence, and remove the film of sensual darkness from his eyes, but I could not."
"God is Infinite Wisdom, and Power, and Goodness - and LOVE; but if this idea is too vast for your human faculties - if your mind loses itself in its overwhelming infinitude, fix it on Him who condescended to take our nature upon Him, who was raised to Heaven even in His glorified human body, in whom the fulness of the Godhead shines."
"Well, to tell you the truth, I've thought of it often and often before, but he's such devilish good company is Huntingdon, after all - you can't imagine what a jovial good fellow he is when he's not fairly drunk, only just primed or half-seas-over - we all have a bit of a liking for him at the bottom of our hearts, though we can't respect him.''But should you wish yourself to be like him?''No, I'd rather be like myself, bad as I am."
"I shall expect my husband to have no pleasures but what he shares with me; and if his greatest pleasure of all is not the enjoyment of my company - why - it will be the worse for him - that's all.''If such are your expectations of matrimony, Esther, you must, indeed, be careful whom you marry - or rather, you must avoid it altogether."