EMILY BRONTË - QUOTES

EMILY BRONTË QUOTES

Wuthering Heights (1847)

Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling, "wuthering" being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed. One may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house, and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun.

--Chapter I

A stranger is a stranger, be he rich or poor.

--Chapter II

I'm now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.

--Chapter III

Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves.

--Chapter VII

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.

--Chapter VII

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.

--Chapter VII

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.

--Chapter IX

Heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy. That will do to explain my secret, as well as the other. 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.

--Chapter IX

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 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 — so, don't talk of our separation again — it is impracticable.

--Chapter IX

Well, we must be for ourselves in the long run; the mild and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering.

--Chapter X

The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don't turn against him, they crush those beneath them.

--Chapter XI

Any relic of the dead is precious, if they were valued living.

--Chapter XIII

I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine — If he loved 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 house-trough, as her whole affection be monopolized by him — Tush! He is scarcely a degree nearer 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?

--Chapter XIV

You talk of her mind being unsettled — How the devil could it be otherwise, in her frightful isolation? And that insipid, paltry creature attending her from duty and humanity! From pity and charity. He might as well plant an oak in a flower-pot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigour in the soil of his shallow cares!

--Chapter XIV

I don't know if it be a peculiarity in me, but I am seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death, should no frenzied or despairing mourner share the duty with me. I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter--the eternity they have entered--where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fullness.

--Chapter XVI

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!

--Chapter XVI

Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies.

--Chapter XVII

That ... 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!

--Chapter XXXIII

I sought, and soon discovered, the three head-stones on the slope next the moor — the middle one, gray, and half buried in heath — Edgar Linton's only harmonized by the turf and moss, creeping up its foot — Heathcliff's still bare. I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers, for the sleepers in that quiet earth.

--Chapter XXXIV


EMILY BRONTE QUOTES

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.

EMILY BRONTE, Wuthering Heights

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

EMILY BRONTE, Last Lines

I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.

EMILY BRONTE, Wuthering Heights

Honest people don't hide their deeds.

EMILY BRONTE, Wuthering Heights

Any relic of the dead is precious, if they were valued living.

EMILY BRONTE, Wuthering Heights

Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.

EMILY BRONTE, Last Lines

Let grief distract the sufferer's breast,
And night obscure his way;
They hasten him to endless rest,
And everlasting day.

EMILY BRONTE, A Day Dream

The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don’t turn against him, they crush those beneath them.

EMILY BRONTE, Wuthering Heights

Hope, whose whisper would have given
Balm to all my frenzied pain,
Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven,
Went, and ne'er returned again!

EMILY BRONTE, Hope

Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves.

EMILY BRONTE, Wuthering Heights

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?

Emily Brontë, Love and Friendship

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!

EMILY BRONTE, Wuthering Heights

Look on the grave where thou must sleep
Thy last, and strongest foe;
It is endurance not to weep,
If that repose seem woe.

EMILY BRONTE, Self-Interrogation