"We have all had severe colds and coughs in consequence of the severe weather. Poor Anne has suffered greatly from asthma, but is now, I am glad to say, rather better - she had two nights last week when her cough and difficulty of breathing were painful indeed to hear and witness and must have been most distressing to suffer - she bore it, as she does all affliction, without one complaint – only sighing now and then when nearly worn out – she has an extraordinary heroism of endurance. I admire, but certainly could not imitate her."

"What is said of Charlotte may, with almost equal truth, be said of Emily and Anne; though they differed greatly in many points of character and disposition, they were each and all on common ground if a principle had to be maintained or a sham to be detected. They were all jealous of anything hollow or unreal. All were resolutely single-minded, eminently courageous, eminently simple in their habits, and eminently tender-hearted."

"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 fullness of the Godhead shines."

"It is a troublesome thing this susceptibility to affronts where none are intended."

"If you loved as I do, she earnestly replied, you would not have so nearly lost me — these scruples of false delicacy and pride would never thus have troubled you — you would have seen that the greatest worldly distinctions and discrepancies of rank, birth, and fortune are as dust in the balance compared with the unity of accordant thoughts and feelings, and truly loving, sympathising hearts and souls."

"It is deeds not words which must purchase my affection and esteem."

"If Anne Brontë had lived ten years longer she would have taken a place beside Jane Austen, perhaps even a higher place."

"There's nothing like active employment to console the afflicted."

"On all her breezes borne Earth yields no scents like those; But he, that dares not grasp the thorn Should never crave the rose."

"Don't you know that every time we meet the thoughts of the final parting will become more painful? Don't you feel that every interview makes us dearer to each other than the last?"

"Never mind our kind friends: if they can part our bodies, it is enough; in God's name, let them not sunder our souls!"

"There is perfect love in heaven!"

"He cannot endure Rachel, because he knows she has a proper appreciation of him."

"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."

"I'd rather be like myself, bad as I am."

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

"It is never too late to reform, as long as you have the sense to desire it, and the strength to execute your purpose."

"And you thought to rob me of my son too, and bring him up to be a dirty Yankee tradesman, or a low, beggarly painter?" "Yes, to obviate his becoming such a gentleman as his father."

"You might as well sell yourself to slavery at once, as marry man you dislike."

"Anne, from childhood on, was the most obviously delicate of the Brontë children. She suffered from asthma and was an easy prey to colds and influenza. This weakness caused Charlotte to recall later in life that Anne, since 'early childhood... seemed preparing for an early death'. Judgements of Anne's physical infirmity seem to have led Charlotte unconsciously to corollary judgements of relative weakness of character and intellect. But Anne was, of the sisters, perhaps the most rigorously logical, the most quietly observant, the most realistic, and, in certain spheres, the most tenacious, the most determined, and the most courageous. All of these qualities were to emerge as her life unfolded."

"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."

"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."

"God have mercy on his miserable soul! and make him see and feel his guilt — I ask no other vengeance! If he could but fully know and truly feel my wrongs I should be well avenged, and I could freely pardon all."

"Forgetfulness is not to be purchased with a wish; and I cannot bestow my esteem on all who desire it, unless they deserve it too."

"Revenge! No — what good would that do? — it would make him no better, and me no happier."

"Chess-players are so unsociable, they are no company for any but themselves."

"No generous mind delights to oppress the weak, but rather to cherish and protect."

"I sometimes think she has no feeling at all; and then I go on till she cries — and that satisfies me."

"I will not allow myself to be worse than my fellows."

"If you had no higher motive than the approval of your fellow mortal, it would do you little good."

"Life and hope must cease together."

"How odd it is that we so often weep for each other’s distresses, when we shed not a tear for our own!"

"Adoration isn’t love. I adore Annabella, but I don’t love her; and I love thee, Milicent, but I don’t adore thee."

"What the world stigmatizes as romantic, is often more nearly allied to the truth than is commonly supposed; for, if the generous ideas of youth are too often over-clouded by the sordid views of after-life, that scarcely proves them to be false."

"A burst of passion is a fine rousing thing upon occasion, Helen, and a flood of tears is marvellously affecting, but, when indulged too often, they are both deuced plaguy things for spoiling one's beauty and tiring out one's friends."

"A man must have something to grumble about; and if he can’t complain that his wife harries him to death with her perversity and ill-humour, he must complain that she wears him out with her kindness and gentleness."

"Though I hate him from my heart, and should rejoice at any calamity that could befall him, I'll leave him to God; and though I abhor my own life, I'll leave that, too, to Him that gave it."

"I know not whether, at the time, it was not for him rather than myself that I blushed; for, since he and I are one, I so identify myself with him, that I feel his degradation, his failings, and transgressions as my own; I blush for him, I fear for him; I repent for him, weep, pray, and feel for him as for myself; but I cannot act for him; and hence, I must be and I am, debased, contaminated by the union, both in my own eyes, and in the actual truth."

"Whatever my husband's faults may be, it can only aggravate the evil for me to hear them from a stranger's lips."

"Intimate acquaintance must precede real friendship."

"Instead of combating my slight prejudice against you as uncharitable, I mean to cherish it, until I am convinced that I have no reason to distrust this kind, insinuating friendship you are so anxious to push upon me."

"Those, whose time is fully occupied, seldom complain of solitude."

"Where hope rises fear must lurk behind."

"I can't love it — what is there to love? It can't love me — or you either; it can't understand a single word you say to it, or feel one spark of gratitude for all your kindness. Wait till it can show some little affection for me, and then I'll see about loving it. At present it is nothing more than a little selfish, senseless sensualist, and if you see anything adorable in it, it's all very well — I only wonder how you can."

"You're at that game of threatening me with the loss of your affection again, are you? I think it couldn't have been very genuine stuff to begin with, if it's so easily demolished."

"His idea of a wife is a thing to love one devotedly, and to stay at home — to wait upon her husband, and amuse him and minister to his comfort in every possible way, while he chooses to stay with her; and, when he is absent, to attend to his interests, domestic or otherwise, and patiently wait his return; no matter how he may be occupied in the meantime."

"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."

"I ever give a thought to another, you may well spare it, for those fancies are here and gone like a flash of lightning, while my love for you burns on steadily, and for ever, like the sun."

"You may think it all very fine, Mr. Huntingdon, to amuse yourself with rousing my jealousy; but take care you don't rouse my hate instead. And when you have once extinguished my love, you will find it no easy matter to kindle it again."

"To wheedle and coax is safer than to command."