Anne Brontë > Quotes

“Mogla bih biti uistinu sretna u kući punoj neprijatelja, kada bih imala samo jednog prijatelja, koji bi me istinski, duboko i vjerno volio.”
― Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey

“I can feel for anyone that is unjustly treated...and I can feel for those that injure them too.”
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“There was a feeling of freshness and vigour in the very streets; and when I got free of the town, when my foot was on the sands and my face towards the broad, bright bay, no language can describe the effect of the deep, clear azure of the sky and ocean, the bright morning sunshine on the semicircular barrier of craggy cliffs surmounted by green swelling hills, and on the smooth, wide sands, and the low rocks out at sea—looking, with their clothing of weeds and moss, like little grass–grown islands—and above all, on the brilliant, sparkling waves. And then, the unspeakable purity—and freshness of the air! There was just enough heat to enhance the value of the breeze, and just enough wind to keep the whole sea in motion, to make the waves come bounding to the shore, foaming and sparkling, as if wild with glee. Nothing else was stirring—no living creature was visible besides myself. My footsteps were the first to press the firm, unbroken sands;—nothing before had trampled them since last night’s flowing tide had obliterated the deepest marks of yesterday, and left them fair and even, except where the subsiding water had left behind it the traces of dimpled pools and little running streams.”
― Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey

“But Arthur dislikes me to talk to him, and is visibly annoyed by his commonest acts of politeness; not that my husband has any unworthy suspicions of me—or of his friend either, as I believe—but he dislikes me to have any pleasure but in himself, any shadow of homage or kindness but such as he chooses to vouchsafe: he knows he is my sun, but when he chooses to withhold his light, he would have my sky to be all darkness; he cannot bear that I should have a moon to mitigate the deprivation. This is unjust; and I am sometimes tempted to teaze him accordingly; but I won’t yield to the temptation: if he should carry his trifling with my feelings too far, I shall find some other means of checking him.”
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“It may seem a hard matter, to love our neighbours who have so much of what is evil about them, and whose faults so often await the evil that lingers within ourselves. But remember that he made them and he loves them, and whosever loves him that begat, loveth him that was begotten also. and if god so loveth us that he gave his only begotten son to die for us, we ought also to love one another, but if you cannot feel positive affection for those that do not care for you, you can at least try to do to them as they should do unto you. You can endeavour to pity their failings and excuse their offenses and to do all the good you can to those about you. And if you accustom yourself to this, Nancy, the very effort itself will make you love them in some degree, to say nothing of the goodwill your kindness would beget in them, though they might have little else that is good about them. If we love God, and wish to serve him, let us try to be like him, to do his work, to labour for his glory, which is the good of man, to hasten the coming of his kingdom, which is the peace and happiness of all the world. However powerless we may seem to be in doing all the good through life, the humblest of us may do much towards it. And let us dwell in love, that he may dwell in us, and we in him. The more happiness we bestow, the more we shall receive even here and the greater will be our reward in heaven when rest from our labours.”
― Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey: A Novel

“. . . because we cannot conceive that as we grow up our own minds will become so enlarged and elevated that we ourselves shall then regard as trifling those objects and pursuits we now so fondly cherish, and that, though our companions will no longer join us in those childish pastimes, they will drink with us at other fountains of delight, and mingle their souls with ours in higher aims and nobler occupations beyond our present comprehension, but not less deeply relished or less truly good for that, while yet both we and they remain essentially the same individuals as before.”
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“One glance he gave, one little smile at parting--it was but for a moment;but therein I read, a meaning that kindled in my heart a brighter flame of hope than had ever yet arisen.”
― Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey

“I can conceive few situations more harassing than that wherein, however you may long for success, however you may labour to fulfil your duty, your efforts are baffled and set at nought by those beneath you, and unjustly censured and misjudged by those above.”
― Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey

“Then, it was by my own will that I had got the place, I had brought all this tribulation on myself, and I was determined to bear it; nay, more than that, I did not even regret the step I had taken, and I longed to show my friends that, even now, I was competent to undertake the charge, and able to acquit myself honourably to the end; and, if ever I felt degrading to submit so quietly, or intolerable to toil so constantly, I would turn towards my home, and say within myself -
"They may crush, but they shall not subdue me;
'Tis of thee that I think, not of them.”
― Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey

“Lines Composed in a Wood on a Windy Day

My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring
And carried aloft on the winds of the breeze;
For above and around me the wild wind is roaring,
Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.
The long withered grass in the sunshine is glancing,
The bare trees are tossing their branches on high;
The dead leaves beneath them are merrily dancing,
The white clouds are scudding across the blue sky.
I wish I could see how the ocean is lashing
The foam of its billows to whirlwinds of spray;
I wish I could see how its proud waves are dashing,
And hear the wild roar of their thunder to-day!”
― Anne Brontë

“When I feel it my duty to speak an unpalatable truth, with the help of God, I will speak it, though it be to the prejudice of my name and to the detriment of my reader’s immediate pleasure as well as my own.”
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“The cases are different,' he replied. 'It is a woman's nature to be constant - to love one and one only, blindly, tenderly, and for ever - bless them, dear creatures! and you above them all; but you must have some commiseration for us, Helen; you must give us a little more licence, for, as Shakespeare has it -
However we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won Than women's are.”
― Anne Brontë

“I am above eighteen, and quite able to take care of myself, and others too. You do not know half the wisdom and prudence I possess, because I have never been tried.”
― Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey

“I returned, however, with unabated vigour to my work—a more arduous task than anyone can imagine, who has not felt something like the misery of being charged with the care and direction of a set of mischievous, turbulent rebels, whom his utmost exertions cannot bind to their duty; while, at the same time, he is responsible for their conduct to a higher power, who exacts from him what cannot be achieved without the aid of the superior’s more potent authority; which, either from indolence, or the fear of becoming unpopular with the said rebellious gang, the latter refuses to give. I can conceive few situations more harassing than that wherein, however you may long for success, however you may labour to fulfil your duty, your efforts are baffled and set at nought by those beneath you, and unjustly censured and misjudged by those above.”
― Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey

“Long before Helen has consciously recognized her bad bargain, the reader has understood that there is nothing to Arthur Huntingdon. It is not that he is an intrinsically evil person. He is a brat.”
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“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, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“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, Agnes Grey

“a soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger.”  It isn’t only in them you speak to, but in yourself.’ ‘Very true,”
― Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey

“How odd it is that we so often weep for each other’s distresses, when we shed not a tear for our own!”
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“it is better to arm and strengthen your hero, than to disarm and enfeeble the foe;—and if you were to rear an oak sapling in a hothouse, tending it carefully night and day, and shielding it from every breath of wind, you could not expect it to become a hardy tree, like that which has grown up on the mountain-side, exposed to all the action of the elements, and not even sheltered from the shock of the tempest.”
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“Now I am a wife: my bliss is sobered, but not destroyed; my hopes diminished, but not departed; my fears increased, but notyet thoroughly confirmed.”
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“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”
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“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.”
― Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey

“However little you may esteem them as individuals, it is not pleasant to be looked upon as a liar and a hypocrite. To be thought to practice what you abhor. And to encourage the vices you would discountenance. To find your good intentions frustrated and your hands crippled by your supposed unworthiness, and to bring disgrace on the principles you profess.”
― Anne Brontë

“The best way to enjoy yourself is to do what is right and hate nobody. The end of Religion is not to teach us how to die, but how to live; and the earlier you become wise and good, the more of happiness you secure.”
― Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey

“Then having broken my long fast on a cup of tea and a little thin bread and butter, I sat down beside the small, smouldering fire, and amused myself with a hearty fit of crying.”
― Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey

“And winter's chill is on my heart-
How can I dream of future bliss?
How can my spirit soar away?
Confined by such a chain as this?”
― Anne Brontë, The Complete Poems of Anne Bronte

“True benevolence and gentle, considerate kindness.”
― Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey

“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.’ ‘Then”
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“being a great despiser of tea and such slops, and a patron of malt liquors, bacon and eggs, ham, hung beef, and other strong meats, which agreed well enough with his digestive organs, and therefore were maintained by him to be good and wholesome for everybody, and confidently recommended to the most delicate convalescents or dyspeptics, who, if they failed to derive the promised benefit from his prescriptions, were told it was because they had not persevered, and if they complained of inconvenient results therefrom, were assured it was all fancy.”
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall