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My heart is too thoroughly dried to be broken in a hurry, and I mean to live as long as I can.
Anne Bronte -
I see that a man cannot give himself up to drinking without being miserable one half his days and mad the other; besides, I like to enjoy my life at all sides and ends, which cannot be done by one that suffers himself to be the slave of a single propensity.
Anne Bronte
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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.
Anne Bronte -
I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are or should be, written for both men and women to read, and I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.
Anne Bronte -
I will give my whole heart and soul to my Maker if I can,' I answered, 'and not one atom more of it to you than He allows. 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.
Anne Bronte -
Because the road is rough and long, Should we despise the skylark's song?
Anne Bronte -
I wished to tell the truth, for truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it.
Anne Bronte -
I still preserve those relics of past sufferings and experience, like pillars of witness set up in travelling through the valve of life, to mark particular occurrences. The footsteps are obliterated now; the face of the country may be changed; but the pillar is still there, to remind me how all things were when it was reared.
Anne Bronte
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I’ll promise to think twice before I take any important step you seriously disapprove of.
Anne Bronte -
I was sorry for her; I was amazed, disgusted at her heartless vanity; I wondered why so much beauty should be given to those who made so bad a use of it, and denied to some who would make it a benefit to both themselves and others. But, God knows best, I concluded. There are, I suppose, some men as vain, as selfish, and as heartless as she is, and, perhaps, such women may be useful to punish them.
Anne Bronte -
I cannot love a man who cannot protect me.
Anne Bronte -
There is perfect love in heaven!
Anne Bronte -
It is a hard, embittering thing to have one's kind feelings and good intentions cast back in one's teeth.
Anne Bronte -
Thank heaven, I am free and safe at last!
Anne Bronte
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Preface to second edition. I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be.
Anne Bronte -
A girl's affections should never be won unsought.
Anne Bronte -
No, thank you, I don't mind the rain,' I said. I always lacked common sense when taken by surprise.
Anne Bronte -
The bud, though plucked, would not be withered, only transplanted to a fitter soil to ripen and blow beneath a brighter sun; and though I might not cherish and watch my child's unfolding intellect, he would be snatched away from all the suffering and sins of earth; and my understanding tells me this would be no great evil; but my heart shrinks from the contemplation of such a possibility, and whispers I could not bear to see him die.
Anne Bronte -
I had been seasoned by adversity, and tutored by experience, and I longed to redeem my lost honour in the eyes of those whose opinion was more than that of all the world to me.
Anne Bronte -
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 destitute of real virtue, to teach her how to sin is at once to make her a sinner.
Anne Bronte
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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.
Anne Bronte -
I was not really angry: I felt for him all the time, and longed to be reconciled; but I determined he should make the first advances, or at least show some signs of an humble and contrite spirit, first; for, if I began, it would only minister to his self-conceit, increase his arrogance, and quite destroy the lesson I wanted to give him.
Anne Bronte -
If the generous ideas of youth are too often over- clouded by the sordid views of after-life, that scarcely proves them to be false.
Anne Bronte -
What business had I to think so much of one that never thought of me?
Anne Bronte