Written and published during the time when women were considered inferior to men, this book has enthralled even the most critical of readers. Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is considered a masterpiece thanks to its independent and strong feminine character and her quest for self-respect. Little wonder that it is considered one of the greatest triumphs of storytelling. Read on for some inspirational Jane Eyre quotes.
32 Jane Eyre Quotes That Speak of Passion and Inspiration
Jane Eyre Quotes on Gender and Class
#1. “Do you think I am an automaton?—a machine without feelings? And can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#2. “I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#3. “He had not imagined that a woman would dare to speak so to a man. For me, I felt at home in this sort of discourse. I could never rest in communication with strong, discreet, and refined minds, whether male or female, till I had passed the outworks of conventional reserve, and crossed the threshold of confidence, and won a place by their heart’s very hearth-stone.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre Quotes on Happiness
#4. “I would always rather be happy than dignified.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#5. “There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Inspirational Jane Eyre Quotes
#6. “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#7. “I need not sell my soul to buy bliss.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#8. “It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#9. “I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had the courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#10. “‘I am not an angel,’ I asserted; ‘and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself.'” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre Quotes on Passion
#11. “Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#12. “Flirting is a woman’s trade, one must keep in practice.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#13. “All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence forever.” ― Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
#14. “I have little left in myself—I must have you. The world may laugh—may call me absurd, selfish—but it does not signify. My very soul demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#15. “I ask you to pass through life at my side—to be my second self, and best earthly companion.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#16. “Good-night, my’ he stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#17. “Reader, I married him.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#18. “Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#19. “I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#20. “I must, then, repeat continually that we are forever sundered – and yet, while I breathe and think, I must love him.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#21. “I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blest–blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband’s life as fully as he is mine.”― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#22. “Her coming was my hope each day, her parting was my pain; The chance that did her steps delay was ice in every vein.” ― Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
#23. “I have a strange feeling with regard to you. As if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly knotted to a similar string in you. And if you were to leave, I’m afraid that cord of communion would snap. And I have a notion that I’d take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, you’d forget me.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre Quotes on Life
#24. “It is a pity that doing one’s best does not always answer.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#25. “When we are struck without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should―so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#26. “Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#27. “Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Other Jane Eyre Quotes
#28. “Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#29. “Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#30. “The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter – often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter―in the eye.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#31. “I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
#32. “It is not violence that best overcomes hate―nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Conclusion
Even though the book was written during the Victorian Age, where gender inequality and the class divide were prevalent, many Jane Eyre quotes and lessons are extremely relevant in modern society as well.
Image source: Jane Eyre photo from pinterest.com
