Anne Bronte (1820 – 1849)
British novelist and poet, the youngest sibling of Charlotte and Emily Brontė.
"I'd rather be like myself, bad as I am."
"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."
"When a lady does consent to listen to an argument against her own opinions, she is always predetermined to withstand it - to listen only with her bodily ears, keeping the mental organs resolutely closed against the strongest reasoning."
My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring
And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze;
For above and around me the wild wind is roaring,
Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.
"I trust she may yet be happy; but, if she is, it will be entirely the reward of her own goodness of heart; for had she chosen to consider herself the victim of fate, or of her mother's worldly wisdom, she might have been thoroughly miserable; and if, for duty's sake, she had not made every effort to love her husband, she would, doubtless, have hated him to the end of her days."
"Why," said I "why should you suppose that I dislike the place?"
"You told me so yourself," was the decisive reply. "You said, at least, that you could not live contentedly, without a friend; and that you had no friend here, and no possibility of making one and, besides, I know you must dislike it."
"I think your piety one of your greatest charms; but then, like all other good things, it may be carried too far. To my thinking, a woman's religion ought not to lessen her devotion to her earthly lord. She should have enough to purify and etherealise her soul, but not enough to refine away her heart, and raise her above all human sympathies"
"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."
Yet, should thy darkest fears be true,
If Heaven be so severe,
That such a soul as thine is lost,
Oh! how shall I appear?
I know I owe my all to Thee,
O, take this heart I cannot give.
Do Thou my Strength my Saviour be;
And make me to Thy glory live!
"A man can live without his money as merrily as a tortoise without its head, or a wasp without its body."
"My cup of sweets is not unmingled: it is dashed with a bitterness that I cannot hide from myself, disguise it as I will."
"If you choose to visit the bottomless pit, I won't go with you - we must part company, for I swear I'll not move another step towards it!"
"Alas! poor Milicent, what encouragement can I give you? - or what advice - except that it is better to make a bold stand now, though at the expense of disappointing and angering both mother and brother, and lover, than to devote your whole life, hereafter, to misery and vain regret?"
"The demon of drink was as black as the demon of play, and nearly as hard to get rid of - especially as his kind friends did all they could to second the promptings of his own insatiable cravings."
"You will have no credit for your virtue (if you call it such): even your best friends will not believe in it; because it is monstrous, and not to be credited but by those who suffer, from the effects of it, such cruel torments that they know it to be indeed reality."
If I hate the sins, I love the sinner, and would do much for his salvation.
"But to tell you the truth, Mr. Boarham, it is on my own account I principally object; so let us - drop the subject, for it is worse than useless to pursue it any further"
"What are you, sir, that you should set yourself up as a god, and presume to dispute possession of my heart with Him to whom I owe all I have and all I am, every blessing I ever did or ever can enjoy - and yourself among the rest - if you are a blessing, which I am half inclined to doubt."
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.