Emily Bronte Quotations

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.

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.

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

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.

I have dreamed in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.

I cannot express it: but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is, or should be, an existence of yours beyond you.

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

If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results.

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading: It vexes me to choose another guide: Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding; Where the wild wind blows on the mountain-side.

Having leveled my palace, don't erect a hovel and complacently admire your own charity in giving me that for a home.

I see heaven's glories shine and faith shines equal.

Yesterday afternoon set in misty and cold. I had half a mind to spend it by my study fire, instead of wading through heath and mud to Wuthering Heights.

...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 then I am always a pleasure to myself - but, as my own being...

No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere; I see Heaven's glories shine, And, Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear

He is more myself than I am. Whatever our two souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

Having levelled my palace, don't erect a hovel and complacently admire your own charity in giving me that for a home.

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.

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

Oh! dreadful is the check - intense the agony - / When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see; / When the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again; / The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain.

Cold in the earth - and the deep snow piled above thee, / Far, far, removed, cold in the dreary grave!

A wild, wick slip she was - but, she had the bonniest eye and sweetest smile, and lightest foot in the parish: and, after all, I believe she meant no harm; for when once she made you cry in good earnest, it seldom happened that she would not keep you company, and oblige you to be quiet that you might comfort her.

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!

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.

He said the pleasantest manner of spending a hot July day was lying from morning till evening on a bank of heath in the middle of the moors, with the bees humming dreamily about among the bloom, and the larks singing high up overhead, and the blue sky and bright sun shining steadily and cloudlessly.

Riches I hold in light esteem, And love I laugh to scorn, And lust of fame was but a dream That vanished with the morn. And if I pray, the only prayer That moves my lips for me Is, 'Leave the heart that now I bear, And give me liberty!' Yes, as my swift days near their goal, 'Tis all that I implore - In life and death, a chainless soul, With courage to endure.

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?

Cathy, this lamb of yours threatens like a bull!' he said. 'It is in danger of splitting its skull against my knuckles. By God! Mr. Linton, I'm mortally sorry that you are not worth knocking down!

I never told my love vocally still.

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

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 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...

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.

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

I have fled my country and gone to the heather.

I wish I could hold you,' she continued, bitterly, 'till we were both dead! 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 are going to her: I shall be sorry that I must leave them!" Will you say so, Heathcliff?

The clock strikes off the hollow half-hours of all the life that is left to you, one by one.

You have been compelled to cultivate your reflective faculties for want of occasions for frittering away your life on silly trifles.

Your presence is a moral poison that would contaminate the most virtuous

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.

A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.

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!

Earth reserves no blessing For the unblessed of Heaven!

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

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

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.

Worthless as wither'd weeds.

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

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 understand that most ladies tend to prefer lap dogs.... Perhaps I am an exception.

Oh, for the time when I shall sleep Without identity.

Earnsha was not to be civilized with a wish, and my young lady was no philosopher, and no paragon of patience; but both their minds tending to the same point - one loving and desiring to esteem, and the other loving and desiring to be esteemed - they contrived in the end to reach it.

Nay, you'll be ashamed of me everyday of your life," he answered; "and the more ashamed, the more you know me; and I cannot bide it.

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.

And from the midst of cheerless gloom I passed to bright unclouded day.

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!

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?

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.

Hush, my darling! Hush, hush, Catherine! I'll stay. If he shot me so, I'd expire with a blessing on my lips.

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.

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

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...

The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, 'Let me in - let me in!' 'Who are you?' I asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself. 'Catherine Linton,' it replied, shiveringly (why did I think of LINTON? I had read EARNSHAW twenty times for Linton) - 'I'm come home: I'd lost my way on the moor!' As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a child's face looking through the window.

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

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.

What kind of living will it be when you - Oh, God! Would you like to live with your soul in the grave?

You know that I could as soon forget you as my existence!

I'm wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there; not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart; but really with it, and in it.

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 can not live without my life! I can not live without my soul!

Oh, Cathy! Oh, my life! how can I bear it?" was the first sentence he uttered, in a tone that did not seek to disguise his despair. And now he stared at her so earnestly that I thought the very intensity of his gaze would bring tears into his eyes; but they burned with anguish: they did not melt.

Shall Earth no more inspire thee, Thou lonely dreamer now?

Terror made me cruel.

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.

Time brought resignation and a melancholy sweeter than common joy.

But there's this one difference: one is gold put to the use of paving-stones, and the other is tin polished to ape a service of silver. Mine has nothing valuable about it; yet I shall have the merit of making it go as far as such poor stuff can go. His had first-rate qualities, and they are lost, rendered worst than unavailing.

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

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

If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable." "Because you are not fit to go there," I answered. "All sinners would be miserable in heaven.

It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands,' he answered. 'Kiss me again; and don’t let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer—but yours! How can I?

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

It’s no company at all, when people know nothing and say nothing,’ she muttered.

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.

Tis moonlight, summer moonlight, All soft and still and fair; The solemn hour of midnight Breathes sweet thoughts everywhere, But most where trees are sending Their breezy boughs on high, Or stooping low are lending A shelter from the sky. And there in those wild bowers A lovely form is laid; Green grass and dew-steeped flowers Wave gently round her head.

It is strange people should be so greedy, when they are alone in the world.

There is not room for Death, Nor atom that his might could render void: Thou - Thou art Being and Breath, And what Thou art may never be destroyed.

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.

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?

In secret pleasure — secret tears This changeful life has slipped away

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