Emily Brontë Quotes - Page 2

I'd be glad of a retaliation that wouldn't recoil on myself; but treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends: they wound those who resort to them, worse than their enemies.

No coward soul is mine,No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:I see heaven's glories shine,And faith shines equal, arming me from fear

In the first place, his startling likeness to Catherine, connected him fearfully with her. That, however, which you may suppose the most potent to arrest my imagination, is actually the least – for what is not connected with her to me? and what does not recall her? I cannot look down to this floor, but her features are shaped on the flags! In every cloud, in every tree – filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object, by day I am surrounded with her image! The most ordinary faces of men, and women – my own features mock me with a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!

To sneer at his imperfect attempt was very bad breeding.

But you might as well bid a man struggling in the water, rest within arm's length of the shore! I must reach it first, and then I'll rest.

THEY are afraid of nothing,' I grumbled, watching their approach through the window. 'Together, they would brave Satan and all his legions.

The clock strikes off the hollow half-hours of all the life that is left to you, one by one.

You know that I could as soon forget you as my existence!

I’ll walk, but not in old heroic traces,And not in paths of high morality,And not among the half-distinguished faces,The clouded forms of long-past history.I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading:It vexes me to choose another guide:Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding;Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side.

She dried her tears, and they did smileTo see her cheeks’ returning glow;Nor did discern how all the whileThat full heart throbbed to overflow.With that sweet look and lively tone,And bright eye shining all the day,They could not guess, at midnight loneHow she would weep the time away.

She burned too bright for this world.

For the space of half a year, the gunpowder lay as harmless as sand, because no fire came near to explode it.

Worthless as wither'd weeds.

And I am weary of the anguishIncreasing winters bear;Weary to watch the spirit languishThrough years of dead despair.So, if a tear, when thou art dying,Should haply fall from me,It is but that my soul is sighing,To go and rest with thee.

Hope Was but a timid friend;She sat without the grated den,Watching how my fate would tend,Even as selfish-hearted men.She was cruel in her fear;Through the bars one dreary day,I looked out to see her there,And she turned her face away!Like a false guard, false watch keeping,Still, in strife, she whispered peace;She would sing while I was weeping;If I listened, she would cease.False she was, and unrelenting;When my last joys strewed the ground,Even Sorrow saw, repenting,Those sad relics scattered round;Hope, whose whisper would have givenBalm to all my frenzied pain,Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven,Went, and ne'er returned again!

When I asked her what was the matter? answered, she didn't know; but she felt so afraid of dying!

If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results.

Existence, after losing her, would be hell

He leant his two elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands and remained rapt in dumb meditation. On my inquiring the subject of his thoughts, he answered gravely 'I'm trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!''For shame, Heathcliff!' said I. 'It is for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive.''No, God won’t have the satisfaction that I shall,' he returned. 'I only wish I knew the best way! Let me alone, and I'll plan it out: while I'm thinking of that I don't feel pain.

Love is like the wild rose-briar; Friendship like the holly-tree. The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms, but which will bloom most constantly?

LinesI die but when the grave shall pressThe heart so long endeared to theeWhen earthy cares no more distressAnd earthy joys are nought to me.Weep not, but think that I have pastBefore thee o'er the sea of gloom.Have anchored safe and rest at lastWhere tears and mouring can not come.'Tis I should weep to leave thee hereOn that dark ocean sailing drearWith storms around and fears beforeAnd no kind light to point the shore.But long or short though life may be'Tis nothing to eternity.We part below to meet on highWhere blissful ages never die.

He'll love and hate equally under cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to loved or hated again.

It’s no company at all, when people know nothing and say nothing,’ she muttered.

Hereafter she is only my sister in name; not because I disown her, but because she has disowned me.

I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.

As different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.

If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity and let my efforts be known by their results.

I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.

And I pray one prayer--I repeat it till my tongue stiffens--Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you--haunt me, then!...Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!

In every cloud, in every tree – filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object, by day I am surrounded with her image! The most ordinary faces of men, and women – my own features mock me with a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!

It is strange people should be so greedy when they are alone in the world!

A person who has not done one half his day's work by ten o'clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.

Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves.

May she wake in torment!" he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. "Why, she's a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there—not in heaven—not perished—where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—May she wake in torment!" he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. "Why, she's a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there—not in heaven—not perished—where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!

I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer - but yours! How can I?

He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

A good heart will help you to a bonny face my lad ... and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly.

Come in! come in !’ he sobbed.‘Cathy, do come. Oh do -once more! Oh! my heart’s darling! hear me this time - Catherine, at last!

You shall not leave me in that temper.I should be miserable all night, and I won’t be miserable for you!

When weary with the long day’s care,And earthly change from pain to pain,And lost, and ready to despair,Thy kind voice calls me back againO my true friend, I am not loneWhile thou canst speak with such a tone!So hopeless is the world without,The world within I doubly prize;Thy world where guile and hate and doubtAnd cold suspicion never rise;Where thou and I and LibertyHave undisputed sovereignty.What matters it that all aroundDanger and grief and darkness lie,If but within our bosom’s boundWe hold a bright unsullied sky,Warm with ten thousand mingled raysOf suns that know no winter days?Reason indeed may oft complainFor Nature’s sad reality,And tell the suffering heart how vainIts cherished dreams must always be;And Truth may rudely trample downThe flowers of Fancy newly blown.But thou art ever there to bringThe hovering visions back and breatheNew glories o’er the blighted springAnd call a lovelier life from death,And whisper with a voice divineOf real worlds as bright as thine.I trust not to thy phantom bliss,Yet still in evening’s quiet hourWith never-failing thankfulness Iwelcome thee, benignant power,Sure solacer of human caresAnd brighter hope when hope despairs.

Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will did it. I have no broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong.

And, even yet, I dare not let it languish,Dare not indulge in memory’s rapturous pain;Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,How could I seek the empty world again?