I know no medium: I never in my life have known any medium in my dealings with positive, hard characters, antagonistic to my own, between absolute submission and determined revolt. I have always faith...
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 afford to give.
I ever wished to look as well as I could, and to please as much as my want of beauty would permit. I sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer; I sometimes wished to have rosy cheeks, a straight no...
I do not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution -- such is not my taste. I wish to foster, not to blight -- to earn gratitude, not to wring tears of blood -- no, nor of brine: my harvest must be in smile...
I can be on guard against my enemies, but God deliver me from my friends!
I believe in that goodly mansion, his heart, he kept one little place under the skylights where Lucy might have entertainment, if she chose to call. It was not so handsome as the chambers where he lod...
I am not pretty. I am not beautiful. I am as radiant as the sun.
But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience?
Then her soul sat on her lips, and language flowed, from what source I cannot tell.
Still I did not answer, and still I writhed myself from his grasp: for I was still incredulous.Do you doubt me, Jane?Entirely.You have no faith in me?
Silence is of different kinds, and breathes different meanings.
Shake me off, then, sir--push me away; for I'll not leave you of my own accord.
Rochester talking to Jane:I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that brow professes to say,--'I can live alone, if self-respect and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sel...
Jane, be still; don't struggle so like a wild, frantic bird, that is rending its own plumage in its desperation.I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will;...
I like the spirit of this great London which I feel around me. Who but a coward would pass his whole life in hamlets; and for ever abandon his faculties to the eating rust of obscurity?
For a long time the fear of seeming singular scared me away; but by degrees, as people became accustomed to me and my habits, and to such shadows of peculiarity as were engrained in my nature - shades...
Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrong.
The charm of variety there was not, nor the excitement of incident; but I liked peace so well, and sought stimulus so little, that when the latter came I almost felt it a disturbance, and rather still...
Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought not to consider poverty a crime.
Propensities and principles must be reconciled by some means.