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fc395b4
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But our wishes are like tinder: the flint and steel of circumstances are continually striking out sparks, which vanish immediately, unless they chance to fall upon the tinder of our wishes; then, they instantly ignite, and the flame of hope is kindled in a moment.
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hope
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Anne Brontë |
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19d3f58
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I began this book with the intention of concealing nothing, that those who liked might have the benefit of perusing a fellow creature's heart: but we have some thoughts that all the angels in heaven are welcome to behold -- but not our brother-men -- not even the best and kindest amongst them.
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Anne Brontë |
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a159808
|
Farewell to thee! but not farewell To all my fondest thoughts of thee:
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poetry
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Anne Brontë |
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bcbafe4
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You say you cannot love God; but it strikes me that if you rightly consider who and what He is, you cannot help it. He is your father, your best friend: every blessing, everything good, pleasant, or useful, comes from Him; and everything evil, everything you have reason to hate, to shun, or to fear, comes from Satan- HIS enemy as well as ours. And for this cause was God manifest in the flesh, that He might destroy the works of the Devil: in..
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Anne Brontë |
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23594ea
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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?
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Anne Brontë |
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045a427
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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.
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family
love
marriage
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Anne Brontë |
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b30dcf4
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Because the road is rough and long, Shall we despise the skylark's song, That cheers the wanderer's way? Or trample down, with reckless feet, The smiling flowerets, bright and sweet, Because they soon decay?
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Anne Brontë |
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e8365b7
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One glance he gave, one little smile at parting--it was but for a moment; but therein I read, or thought I read, a meaning that kindled in my heart a brighter flame of hope than had ever yet arisen.
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true-love
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Anne Brontë |
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18dfc35
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and I imagine that, though cold and haughty in her general demeanor, and even exacting in her requirements, she has strong affections for those who can reach them . . .
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aloofness
coldness
haughtiness
requirements
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Anne Brontë |
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3acdc5e
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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.
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putting-off
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Anne Brontë |
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f3166b5
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There's nothing like active employment, I suppose, to console the afflicted.
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consolation
work
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Anne Brontë |
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4d2323d
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Therefore, have done with this nonsense: you have no ground for hope: dismiss, at once, these hurtful thoughts and foolish wishes from your mind, and turn to your own duty, and the dull blank life that lies before you. You might have known such happiness was not for you.
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love
lovesick
unrequited-love
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Anne Brontë |
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27072cd
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God help me now!' I murmured, sinking on my knees among the damp weeds and brushwood that surrounded me, and looking up at the moonlit sky, through the scant foliage above. It seemed all dim and quivering now to my darkened sight. My burning, bursting heart strove to pour forth its agony to God, but could not frame its anguish into prayer; until a gust of wind swept over me, which, while it scattered the dead leaves, like blighted hopes, ar..
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Anne Brontë |
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3294faa
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Well! what is there remarkable in all this? Why have I recorded it? Because, reader, it was important enough to give me a cheerful evening, a night of pleasing dreams, and a morning of felicitous hopes. Shallow-brained cheerfulness, foolish dreams, unfounded hopes, you would say; and I will not venture to deny it: suspicions to that effect arose too frequently in my own mind. But our wishes are like tinder: the flint and steel of circumstan..
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Anne Brontë |
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bdd2ae0
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Then, you must fall each into your proper place. You'll do your business, and she, if she's worthy of you, will do hers; but it's your business to please yourself, and hers to please you.
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Anne Brontë |
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92250b8
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Long have I dwelt forgotten here In pining woe and dull despair; This place of solitude and gloom Must be my dungeon and my tomb.
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poetry
solitude
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Anne Brontë |
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235b1bc
|
Adieu! but let me cherish, still, The hope with which I cannot part. Contempt may wound, and coldness chill, But still it lingers in my heart. And who can tell but Heaven, at last, May answer all my thousand prayers, And bid the future pay the past With joy for anguish, smiles for tears?
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hope
love
pain
tears
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Anne Brontë |
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8fd4a93
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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 other..
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poetry
prayer
sorrow
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Anne Brontë |
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ac59269
|
It is a troublesome thing, Halford, this susceptibility to affronts where none are intended.
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intentions
susceptibility
trouble
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Anne Brontë |
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798aa10
|
And why should he interest himself at all in my moral and intellectual capacities: what is it to him what I think and feel?' I asked myself. And my heart throbbed in answer to the question.
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Anne Brontë |
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1b4451e
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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.
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expectations
husband
love
matrimony
wife
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Anne Brontë |
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3ce56f6
|
we shouldn't always have what we want: it spoils the best of us, doesn't it?
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spoiled
spoiling
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Anne Brontë |
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b25fff7
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Well, but you affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation; - and you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation, or too little acquainted with vice, or anything connected therewith - It must be, either, that you think she is essentially so vicious, or so feeble-minded that she cannot withstand temptation, - and though she may be pure and innocent as long as she is kept in ignorance and restraint, yet, being destitut..
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men
sin
sinner
stereotypes
weakness
women
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Anne Brontë |
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4cce743
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The human heart is like india-rubber; a little swells it, but a great deal will not burst it. If 'little than nothing' will disturb it, than 'little less than all things' will suffice to break it.
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Anne Brontë |
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6f13a56
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how shall I get through the months or years of my future life, in company with that man -- my greatest enemy -- for none could injure me as he has done? Oh! when I think how fondly, how foolishly I have loved him, how madly I have trusted him, how constantly I have laboured, and studied, and prayed, and struggled for his advantage, and how cruelly he has trampled on my love, betrayed my trust, scorned my prayers and tears, and efforts for h..
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Anne Brontë |
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fcdbd61
|
I do wish he would sometimes be serious. 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?
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Anne Brontë |
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2b068d8
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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 l..
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Anne Brontë |
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99ff0c7
|
It's well to have such a comfortable assurance regarding the worth of those we love. I only wish you may not find your confidence misplaced.
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confidence
misplace
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Anne Brontë |
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3da275b
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This paper will serve instead of a confidential friend into whose ear I might pour forth the overflowings of my heart. It will not sympathize with my distresses, but then, it will not laugh at them, and, if I keep it close, it cannot tell again; so it is, perhaps, the best friend I could have for the purpose.
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Anne Brontë |
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41bd184
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You prefer her faults to other people's perfection.
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Anne Brontë |
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117f9ee
|
My nature was not originally calm,' said I. 'I have learned to appear so by dint of hard lessons and many repeated efforts.
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Anne Brontë |
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1b8c7f4
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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, shrivelled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut. Whether this be the case with my history or not, I am hardly competent to judge. I sometimes think it might prove useful to some, and entertaining to others; but the world may judge for itself. Shielded by my own obscurity,..
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Anne Brontë |
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4fe9887
|
The next visit I paid to Nancy Brown was in the second week in March: for, though I had many spare minutes during the day, I seldom could look upon an hour as entirely my own; since, when everything was left to the caprices of Miss Matilda and her sister, there could be no order or regularity. Whatever occupation I chose, when not actually busied about them or their concerns, I had, as it were, to keep my loins girded, my shoes on my feet, ..
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time
waiting
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Anne Brontë |
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90b9af3
|
Nobody knew him as I did; nobody could appreciate him as I did; nobody could love him as I--could.
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Anne Brontë |
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d06de4c
|
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
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life
poetry
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Anne Brontë |
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4f84f5d
|
No; for instead of delivering myself up to the full enjoyment of them as others do, I am always troubling my head about how I could produce the same effect upon canvas; and as that can never be done, it is more vanity and vexation of spirit.
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Anne Brontë |
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0afaa3c
|
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.
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goodness
jesus-christ
love
power
wisdom
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Anne Brontë |
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f128d08
|
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.
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poetry
|
Anne Brontë |
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bfafef5
|
She left me, offended at my want of sympathy, and thinking, no doubt, that I envied her. I did not - at least, I firmly believed I did not.
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feelings
sympathy
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Anne Brontë |
|
ea172d0
|
If you would have a boy to despise his mother, let her keep him at home, and spend her life in petting him up, and slaving to indulge his follies and caprices.
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contempt
mother
over-indulgence
upbringing
|
Anne Brontë |
|
61b2b07
|
She, however, attentively watched my looks, and her artist's pride was gratified, no doubt, to read my heartfelt admiration in my eyes.
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artist
gratification
pride
watching
|
Anne Brontë |
|
4afc8a9
|
Increase of love brings increase of happiness, when it is mutual, and pure as that will be.
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|
love
purity
|
Anne Brontë |
|
38533c8
|
These scruples of false delicacy and pride would never thus have troubled you - you would have seen that the greatest wordly distinction 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, sympathizing hearts and souls.
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Anne Brontë |
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930b408
|
I would not send a poor girl into the world, unarmed against her foes, and ignorant of the snares that beset her path; nor would I watch and guard her, till, deprived of self-respect and self-reliance, she lost the power or the will to watch and guard herself.
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Anne Brontë |