Top 147 Quotes & Sayings by Emily Bronte - Page 2

How strange! I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me.

However , it’s over, and I’ll take no revenge on his folly – I can afford to suffer anything, hereafter! Should the meanest thing alive slap me on the cheek, I’d not only turn the other, but I’d ask pardon for provoking it – and, as proof, I’ll go make my peace with Edgar instantly – Good night – I’m an angel!

Vain are the thousand creeds That move men's hearts, unutterably vain; Worthless as withered weeds, Or idlest froth amid the boundless main.

He had the hypocrisy to represent a mourner: and previous to following with Hareton, he lifted the unfortunate child on to the table and muttered, with peculiar gusto, 'Now, my bonny lad, you are mine! And we'll see if one tree won't grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it!

I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free... Why am I so changed? I'm sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills.

I have no pity! I have no pity! The more worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails! It is a moral teething, and I grind with greater energy, in proportion to the increase of pain.

I'm happiest when most away I can bear my soul from its home of clay On a windy night when the moon is bright And the eye can wander through worlds of light— When I am not and none beside— Nor earth nor sea nor cloudless sky— But only spirit wandering wide Through infinite immensity.

By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness; how undeserved, I alone can appreciate.

The entire world is a collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her.

Lines I die but when the grave shall press The heart so long endeared to thee When earthy cares no more distress And earthy joys are nought to me. Weep not, but think that I have past Before thee o'er the sea of gloom. Have anchored safe and rest at last Where tears and mouring can not come. 'Tis I should weep to leave thee here On that dark ocean sailing drear With storms around and fears before And 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 high Where blissful ages never die.

The winter wind is loud and wild, Come close to me, my darling child; Forsake thy books, and mate less play; And, while the night is gathering grey, We'll talk its pensive hours away.

Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine -- If he love with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years, as I could in a day. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have; the sea could be as readily contained in that horse-trough, as her whole affection be monopolized by him -- Tush! He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse -- It is not in him to be loved like me, how can she love in him what he has not?

Oh, I'm burning! I wish I were out of doors! I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free... and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed?

I'll be as dirty as I please, and I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty!

I have to remind myself to breathe -- almost to remind my heart to beat!

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

Good words," I replied. "But deeds must prove it also; and after he is well, remember you don't forget resolutions formed in the hour of fear.

I pray every night that I may live after him; because I would rather be miserable than that he should be — that proves I love him better than myself.

I despise him for himself, and hate him for the memories he revives!

You loved me-then what right had you to leave me? What right-answer me-for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? 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 not broken your heart- you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine." ~Heathcliff

Terror made me cruel; and finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes.

I ran to the children's room: their door was ajar, I saw they had never laid down, though it was past midnight; but they were calmer, and did not need me to console them. The little souls were comforting each other with better thoughts than I could have hit on: no parson in the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did, in their innocent talk; and, while I sobbed, and listened. I could not help wishing we were all there safe together.

Cold inthe earthand the deepsnow piled abovethee, Far, far, removed, cold in the dreary grave! Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee, Severed at last byTime's all-serving wave?

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?

A heaven so clear, an earth so calm, So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air; And, deepening still the dreamlike charm, Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere.

Joseph is the wearisomest and self-righteous Pharisee who ever ransacked the Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses on his neighbor.

Last night, I was on the threshold of hell. To-day, I am within sight of my heaven. I have my eyes on it: hardly three feet to sever me!

He had been content with daily labour and rough animal enjoyments, 'till Catherine crossed his path. Shame at her scorn, and hope of her approval, were his first prompts to higher pursuits; and, instead of guarding him from one and winning him to the other, his endeavors to raise himself had produced just the contrary result.

The night is darkening round me, The wild winds coldly blow; But a tyrant spell has bound me, And I cannot, cannot go.

Still let my tyrants know, I am not doomed to wear Year after year in gloom, and desolate despair; A messenger of Hope comes every night to me, And offers for short life, eternal liberty.

I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.

A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.

I got the sexton, who was digging Linton's grave, to remove the earth off her coffin lid, and I opened it. I thought, once, I would have stayed there, when I saw her face again - it is hers yet - he had hard work to stir me; but he said it would change, if the air blew on it.

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.

Alas, for the effects of bad tea and bad temper!

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

It is astonishing how sociable I feel myself compared with him.

He might as well plant an oak in a flowerpot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigour in the soil of his shallow cares!

My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.

Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves. But if you be afraid of your touchiness, you must ask pardon, mind, when she comes in.

Are you acquainted with the mood of mind in which, if you were seated alone, and the cat licking its kitten on the rug before you, you would watch the operation so intently that puss's neglect of one ear would put you seriously out of temper?

I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death; and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen, and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.

I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!

The Lord help us!' he soliloquised in an undertone of peevish displeasure, while relieving me of my horse: looking, meantime, in my face so sourly that I charitably conjectured he must have need of divine aid to digest his dinner, and his pious ejaculation had no reference to my unexpected advent.

I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low I shouldn't have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now so he shall never know how I love him and that not because he's handsome Nelly but because he's more myself than I am. 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.

I shouldn't care what you suffered. I care nothing for your sufferings. Why shouldn't you suffer? I do! Will you forget me? Will you be happy when I am in the earth? Will you say twenty years hence, "That's the grave of Catherine Earnshaw? I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose her; but it is past. I've loved many others since: my children are dearer to me than she was; and, at death, I shall not rejoice that I am going to her: I shall be sorry that I must leave them!" Will you say so, Heathcliff?

He turned, as he spoke, a peculiar look in her direction, a look of hatred unless he has a most perverse set of facial muscles that will not, like those of other people, interpret the language of his soul.

Nonsense, do you imagine he has thought as much of you as you have of him?

You know, I've had a bitter, hard life since I last heard your voice and if I've survived it's all because of you.

Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee, While the world's tide is bearing me along; Sterner desires and darker hopes beset me, Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong.

Wish and learn to smooth away the surly wrinkles, to raise your lids frankly, and change the fiends to confident, innocent angels, suspecting and doubting nothing, and always seeing friends where they are not sure of foes.

She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was off again like a young greyhound; and, at first, I found plenty of entertaiment in listening to the larks singing far and near; and enjoying the sweet, warm sunshine; and watching her, my pet, and my delight, with her golden ringlets flying loose behind, and her bright cheek, as soft and pure in its bloom, as a wild rose, and her eyes radiant with cloudless pleasure. She was a happy creautre, and an angel in those those days. It is a pity she could not stay content.

I never told my love vocally still.

You have left me so long to struggle against death, alone, that I feel and see only death! I feel like death!

And there you see the distinction between our feelings: had he been in my place, and I in his, though I hated him with a hatred that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against him. You may look incredulous, if you please! I never would have banished him from her society as long as she desired his. The moment her regard ceased, I would have torn his heart out and drank his blood! But, till then - if you don't believe me, you don't know me - til then, I would have died by inches before I touched a single hair on his head!

She went of her own accord,' answered the master; 'she has a right to go if she please. Trouble me no more about her. Hereafter she is only me sister in name: not because I disown her, but because she has disowned me.

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.

I love the ground under his feet, and the air over his head, and everything he touches and every word he says. I love all his looks, and all his actions and him entirely and all together.

You must forgive me, for I struggled only for you.

My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will changeit,I'mwellaware, aswinterchangesthetrees. My Love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneatha source of little visible delight but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff.