39 Memorable Quotes From Jane Eyre

Charlotte Brontë’s "Jane Eyre" remains a timeless piece of literature, cherished for its depth, emotion, and pioneering exploration of a woman's quest for independence in the Victorian era. Brontë’s masterful use of language and complex characterizations add layers of meaning to this classic novel, capturing readers from generation to generation. In this post, we have curated a collection of the top 39 memorable quotes from "Jane Eyre" that encapsulate its poignant themes, vivid imagery, and timeless reflections on love, morality, and personal growth. Whether you are revisiting "Jane Eyre" or discovering it for the first time, these quotes will inspire and resonate with the struggles and triumphs of the human spirit within its pages.

1. “Governments and fashions come and go but Jane Eyre is for all time.” - Jasper Fforde

2. “It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, to absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.” - Charlotte Brontë

3. “Ah, but you're the insidious type--Jane Eyre with of touch of Becky Sharp. A thoroughly dangerous girl.” - Dodie Smith

4. “A great deal; you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way; they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at 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

5. “Good fortune opens the hand as well as the heart wonderfully; and to give somewhat when we have largely received, but to afford a vent to the unusual ebullition of the sensations.” - Charlotte Brontë

6. “Now, I've another errand for you,' said my untiring master; "you must away to my room again. What a mercy you are shod with velvet, Jane!--a clod-hopping messenger would never do at this juncture. You must open the middle drawer of my toilet-table and take out a little phial and a little glass you will find there,--quick!"I flew thither and back, bringing the desired vessels."That's well! Now, doctor, I shall take the liberty of administering a dose myself, on my own responsibility. I got this cordial at Rome, of an Italian charlatan--a fellow you would have kicked, Carter. It is not a thing to be used indiscriminately, but it is good upon occasion: as now, for instance. Jane, a little water."He held out the tiny glass, and I half filled it from the water-bottle on the washstand."That will do;--now wet the lip of the phial."I did so; he measured twelve drops of a crimson liquid, and presented it to Mason."Drink, Richard: it will give you the heart you lack, for an hour or so.""But will it hurt me?--is it inflammatory?""Drink! drink! drink!"Mr. Mason obeyed, because it was evidently useless to resist. He was dressed now: he still looked pale, but he was no longer gory and sullied. Mr. Rochester let him sit three minutes after he had swallowed the liquid; he then took his arm--"Now I am sure you can get on your feet," he said--"try."The patient rose."Carter, take him under the other shoulder. Be of good cheer, Richard; step out--that's it!""I do feel better," remarked Mr. Mason."I am sure you do.” - Charlotte Brontë

7. “No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the red-room: it only gave my nerves a shock, of which I feel the reverberation to this day.” - Charlotte Brontë

8. “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

9. “Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs." - Helen Burns” - Charlotte Brontë

10. “-¿Cómo no se estremece? -Porque no tengo frío. -¿Cómo no palidece? -Porque no estoy mal.-¿Cómo no quería consultar mi ciencia? -Porque no soy una necia.La vieja emitió una carcajada cavernosa. Luego sacó una corta pipa y empezó a fumar. Después de haberse entregado a este placer, irguió su encorvado cuerpo, se quitó la pipa de los labios y, mirando fijamente el fuego, dijo subrayando las palabras:-Usted tiene frío, usted está enferma y usted es una necia.-Pruébemelo -dije.-Lo haré en pocas palabras. Tiene usted frío porque está muy sola; está mal, porque le falta el mejor de los sentimientos, el mayor y más dulce que puede experimentar el hombre, y es usted necia porque, sufriendo como sufre, no da una muestra ni inicia un paso para reunirse con el que la espera.” - Charlotte Brontë

11. “I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me.” - Charlotte Brontë

12. “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you, - and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you!” - Charlotte Brontë

13. “Well had Solomon said,'Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” - Charlotte Brontë

14. “[O]ur honeymoon will shine our life long: its beams will only fade over your grave or mine.” - Charlotte Brontë

15. “My help had been needed and claimed; I had given it: I was pleased to have done something: trivial, transitory though the deed was, it was yet an active thing, and I was weary of an existence all passive.” - Charlotte Brontë

16. “For I too liked reading, thought of a frivolous and childish kind; I could not digest or comprehend the serious or substantial.” - Charlotte Brontë

17. “That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar.” - Charlotte Brontë

18. “I am not your dear; I cannot lie down: send me to school soon, Mrs. Reed, for I hate to live here.” - Charlotte Brontë

19. “To be together is for us to be at once free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but more animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character - perfect concord is the result.” - Charlotte Brontë

20. “You transfix me quite.” - Charlotte Brontë

21. “I tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon.” - Charlotte Brontë

22. “What the deuce is to do now?” - Charlotte Brontë

23. “Unjust! - unjust!' said my reason, forced by the agonising stimulus into precocious though transitory power; and Resolve, equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable oppression - as running away, or, if that could not be effected, never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die.” - Charlotte Brontë

24. “I Believe she thought I had forgotten my station; and yours, sir.''Station! Station!-- your station is in my heart, and on the necks of those who would insult you, now or hereafter.” - Charlotte Brontë

25. “I seem to have gathered up a stray lamb in my arms: you wandered out of the fold to seek your shepherd, did you, Jane?” - Charlotte Brontë

26. “I had wakened the glow: his features beamed.'Oh, you are indeed there, my sky-lark!” - Charlotte Brontë

27. “Diana announced that she would just give me time to get over the honey-moon, and then she would come and see me.'She had better not wait till then, Jane,' said Mr. Rochester, when I read her letter to him; 'if she does, she will be too late, for our honey-moon will shine our life-long: its beams will only fade over your grave or mine.” - Charlotte Brontë

28. “And there is enchantment in the very hour I am now spending with you. Who can tell what a dark, dreary, hopeless life I have dragged on for months past? Doing nothing, expecting nothing; merging night in day; feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go out, of hunger when I forgot to eat: and then a ceaseless sorrow, and, at times, a very delirium of desire to behold my Jane again. Yes: for her restoration I longed, far more than for that of my lost sight. How can it be that Jane is with me, and says she loves me? Will she not depart as suddenly as she came? To-morrow, I fear I shall find her no more.” - Charlotte Brontë

29. “Absolutely, sir! Oh, you need not be jealous! I wanted to tease you a little to make you less sad: I thought anger would be better than grief. But if you wish me to love you, could you but see how much I DO love you, you would be proud and content. 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 for ever.” - Charlotte Brontë

30. “But I tell you--and mark my words--you will come some day to a craggy pass in the channel, where the whole of life's stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave into a calmer current...” - Charlotte Brontë

31. “I am a free human being with an independent will."Jane Eyre” - Charlotte Brontë

32. “Las personas reservadas muchas veces necesitan más que las expansivas hablar abiertamente de sus sentimientos y penas. Incluso el estoico más firme es humano, e irrumpir con valor en el mar silencioso de sus almas, a menudo supone hacerles el mayor favor” - Charlotte Brontë

33. “But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience?” - Charlotte Brontë

34. “I recalled that inward sensation I had experienced: for I could recall it, with all its unspeakable strangeness. I recalled the voice I had heard; again I questioned whence it came, as vainly as before: it seemed in ME--not in the external world. I asked was it a mere nervous impression--a delusion? I could not conceive or believe: it was more like an inspiration. The wondrous shock of feeling had come like the earthquake which shook the foundations of Paul and Silas's prison; it had opened the doors of the soul's cell and loosed its bands--it had wakened it out of its sleep, whence it sprang trembling, listening, aghast; then vibrated thrice a cry on my startled ear, and in my quaking heart and through my spirit, which neither feared nor shook, but exulted as if in joy over the success of one effort it had been privileged to make, independent of the cumbrous body.” - Charlotte Brontë

35. “Yes Mrs Reed, to you i owe some fearful pangs of mental suffering, but i ought to forgive you, for you knew not what you did while rendering my heart strings, you thought you were only uprooting your bad propensities.” - Charlotte Brontë

36. “Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.” - Charlotte Brontë

37. “Non era stata mia intenzione amarlo, e avevo fatto di tutto per estirpare dal mio animo i germi dell'amore che vi avevo scovato; e ora, non appena l'avevo rivisto, essi risorgevano spontaneamente più forti e più gagliardi! Anche senza che lo guardassi si faceva amare.” - Charlotte Brontë

38. “The dowager rose and slipped from her pew. There was the sound of tearing silk as she threw up her arms to embrace her son. Then:"Oh, Rupert, darling," she exclaimed in tones of theatrical despair, "don't you see? The game's up!” - Eva Ibbotson

39. “Tessa exploded "I am not asking you to maul me in the Whispering Gallery! By the Angel, Will, would you stop being so polite?!"He looked at her in amazement. "But wouldn't you rather-""I would not rather. I don't want you to be polite! I want you to be Will! I don't want you to indicate points of architectural interest to me as if you were a Baedecker guide! I want you to say dreadfully mad, funny things, and make up songs and be-" The Will I fell in love with, she almost said. "And be Will," she finished instead. "Or I shall strike you with my umbrella.""I am trying to court you," Will said in exasperation. "Court you properly. That's what all this has been about. You know that, don't you?""Mr. Rochester never courted Jane Eyre," Tessa pointed out."No, he dressed up as a woman and terrified the poor girl out of her wits. Is that what you want?""You would make a very ugly woman.""I would not. I would be stunning."Tessa laughed. "There," she said. "There is Will. Isn't that better? Don't you think so?""I don't know," Will said, eyeing her. I'm afraid to answer that. I've heard that when I speak, it makes American women wish to strike me with umbrellas."Tessa laughed again, and then they were both laughing, their smothered giggles bouncing off the walls of the Whispering Gallery. After that, things were decidedly easier between them, and Will's smile when he helped her down from the carriage on their return home, was bright and real.” - Cassandra Clare