Anne-Bronte Quotes

“But 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-Bronte

“It is foolish to wish for beauty. Sensible people never either desire it for themselves or care about it in others. If the mind be but well cultivated, and the heart well disposed, no one ever cares for the exterior.”

— Anne-Bronte

“I cannot love a man who cannot protect me.”

— Anne-Bronte

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-Bronte

“I was sorry for her; I was amazed, disgusted at her heartless vanity; I wondered why so much beauty should be given to those who made so bad a use of it, and denied to some who would make it a benefit to both themselves and others.
But, God knows best, I concluded. There are, I suppose, some men as vain, as selfish, and as heartless as she is, and, perhaps, such women may be useful to punish them.”

— Anne-Bronte

“My heart is too thoroughly dried to be broken in a hurry, and I mean to live as long as I can.”

— Anne-Bronte

“What a fool you must be, said my head to my heart, or my sterner to my softer self.”

— Anne-Bronte

“A little girl loves her bird
Why? Because it lives and feels; because it is helpless and harmless? A toad, likewise, lives and feels, and is equally helpless and harmless; but though she would not hurt a toad, she cannot love it like the bird, with its graceful form, soft feathers, and bright, speaking eyes.”

— Anne-Bronte

“[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-Bronte

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-Bronte

“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-Bronte

“I still preserve those relics of past sufferings and experience, like pillars of witness set up in travelling through the valve of life, to mark particular occurrences. The footsteps are obliterated now; the face of the country may be changed; but the pillar is still there, to remind me how all things were when it was reared.”

— Anne-Bronte

“Although I maintain that if she were more perfect, she would be less interesting.”

— Anne-Bronte

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-Bronte

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-Bronte

If I hate the sins, I love the sinner, and would do much for his salvation

— Anne-Bronte

When a lady condescends to apologise, there is no keeping one's anger.

— Anne-Bronte

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?

— Anne-Bronte

“All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity, that the dry, shriveled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut.”

— Anne-Bronte

No one can be happy in eternal solitude.

— Anne-Bronte

“Farewell to thee! but not farewell
To all my fondest thoughts of thee:
Within my heart they still shall dwell;
And they shall cheer and comfort me.”

— Anne-Bronte

“I possess the faculty of enjoying the company of those I - of my friends as well in silence as in conversation.”

— Anne-Bronte

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-Bronte

“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.”

— Anne-Bronte

“Increase of love brings increase of happiness, when it is mutual, and pure as that will be.”

— Anne-Bronte

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-Bronte

“You need not fear me, for I not only should think it wrong to marry a man that was deficient in sense or in principle, but I should never be tempted to do it; for I could not like him, if he were ever so handsome, and ever so charming, in other respects; I should hate him-despise him-pity him-anything but love him.  My affections not only ought to be founded on approbation, but they will and must be so: for, without approving, I cannot love.  It is needless to say, I ought to be able to respect and honour the man I marry, as well as love him, for I cannot love him without.”

— Anne-Bronte

“There is perfect love in Heaven!”

— Anne-Bronte

“In all we do, and hear, and see,
Is restless Toil and Vanity.
While yet the rolling earth abides,
Men come and go like ocean tides”

— Anne-Bronte

“It is a troublesome thing, Halford, this susceptibility to affronts where none are intended.”

— Anne-Bronte

“Well, let them seize on all they can;
One treasure still is mine,
A heart that loves to think on thee,
And feels the worth of thine.”

— Anne-Bronte

I tried to cheer her up, and apparently succeeded in some degree, before the walk was over; but in the very act my conscience reproved me, knowing, as I did, that, sooner or later, the tie must be broken, and this was only nourishing false hopes and putting off the evil day.

— Anne-Bronte

“Nobody knew him as I did; nobody could appreciate him as I did; nobody could love him as I-could.”

— Anne-Bronte

“By his [God's] help I will arise and address myself diligently to my appointed duty. If happiness in this world is not for me, I will endeavor to promote the welfare of those around me, and my reward shall be hereafter.”

— Anne-Bronte

You prefer her faults to other people's perfection.

— Anne-Bronte

“Well, and what was there in that?
Who ever hung his hopes upon so frail a twig?”

— Anne-Bronte

“God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”

— Anne-Bronte

“And so you prefer her faults to other people's perfections?”

— Anne-Bronte

“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”

— Anne-Bronte

We shouldn't always have what we want: it spoils the best of us, doesn't it?

— Anne-Bronte

“If you would but consider your own unattractive exterior, your unamiable reserve, your foolish diffidence, which must make you appear cold, dull, awkward, and perhaps ill-tempered too; ... if you had but rightly considered these from the beginning, you would never have harboured such presumptuous thoughts; and now that you have been so foolish, pray repent and amend, and let us have no more of it!”

— Anne-Bronte

“Oh, they have robbed me of the hope. My spirit held so dear; They will not let me hear that voice My soul delights to hear.
They will not let me see that face I so delight to see; And they have taken all thy smiles. And all thy love from me.”

— Anne-Bronte

“Though solitude, endured too long,
Bids youthful joys too soon decay,
Makes mirth a stranger to my tongue,
And overclouds my noon of day;
When kindly thoughts that would have way,
Flow back discouraged to my breast;
I know there is, though far away,
A home where heart and soul may rest.
Warm hands are there, that, clasped in mine,
The warmer heart will not belie;
While mirth, and truth, and friendship shine
In smiling lip and earnest eye.
The ice that gathers round my heart
May there be thawed; and sweetly, then,
The joys of youth, that now depart,
Will come to cheer my soul again.”

— Anne-Bronte

“The reprehensible presumption of individuals who attempted to think for themselves in matters connected with religion, or to be guided by their own interpretations of Scripture,”

— Anne-Bronte

“Habitual associates are known to exercise a great influence over each other's minds and manners. Those whose actions are for ever before our eyes, whose words are ever in our ears, will naturally lead us, albeit against our will, slowly, gradually, imperceptibly, perhaps, to act and speak as they do.”

— Anne-Bronte

“This rose is not so fragrant as a summer flower, but it has stood through hardships none of them could bear: the cold rain of winter has sufficed to nourish it, and its faint sun to warm it; the bleak winds have not blanched it, or broken its stem, and the keen frost has not blighted it ... It is still fresh and blooming as a flower can be, with the cold snow even now on its petals.- Will you have it?”

— Anne-Bronte

“Sick of mankind and their disgusting ways ...”

— Anne-Bronte

“A spirit of candor and frankness, when wholly unaccompanied with coarseness, he
admired in others, but he could not acquire it himself.”

— Anne-Bronte

“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.”

— Anne-Bronte

“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.”

— Anne-Bronte