Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846), Lines Composed in a Wood on a Windy Day (1842)
Context: My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring <br/> And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze; <br/> For above and around me the wild wind is roaring, <br/> Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.
Context: My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring
And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze;
For above and around me the wild wind is roaring,
Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.

“What a fool you must be," said my head to my heart, or my sterner to my softer self.”

Anne Brontë book Agnes Grey

Source: Agnes Grey

“Beauty is that quality which, next to money, is generally the most attractive to the worst kinds of men;”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XVI : The Warning of Experience; Mrs. Maxwell to Helen
Context: Beauty is that quality which, next to money, is generally the most attractive to the worst kinds of men; and, therefore, it is likely to entail a great deal of trouble on the possessor.

“If you would have your son to walk honourably through the world, you must not attempt to clear the stones from his path, but teach him to walk firmly over them — not insist upon leading him by the hand, but let him learn to go alone.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. III : A Controversy; Gilbert to Helen

“I would rather have your friendship than the love of any other woman in the world!”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XII : A Tête-à-tête and a Discovery; Gilbert to Helen
Context: You couldn't have given me less encouragement, or treated me with greater severity than you did! And if you think you have wronged me by giving me your friendship, and occasionally admitting to me to the enjoyment of your company and conversation, when all hopes of close intimacy were vain — as indeed you always gave me to understand — if you think you have wronged me by this, you are mistaken; for such favours, in themselves alone, are not only delightful to my heart, but purifying, exalting, ennobling to my soul; and I would rather have your friendship than the love of any other woman in the world!

“I always lacked common sense when taken by surprise.”

Anne Brontë book Agnes Grey

Variant: No, thank you, I don't mind the rain,' I said. I always lacked common sense when taken by surprise.
Source: Agnes Grey

“The end of Religion is not to teach us how to die, but how to live….”

Anne Brontë book Agnes Grey

Source: Agnes Grey

“I wished to tell the truth, for truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it.”

Anne Brontë

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Volume I

“He never could have loved me, or he would not have resigned me so willingly”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“What the world stigmatizes as romantic, is often more nearly allied to the truth than is commonly supposed; for, 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 Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXXII : Comparisons: Information Rejected; Helen to Milicent

“Although I maintain that if she were more perfect, she would be less interesting.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Variant: If she were more perfect, she would be less interesting.
Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. I : A Discovery; Gilbert to Rose

“If I hate the sins, I love the sinner, and would do much for his salvation.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XVII : Further Warnings; Helen to Mrs. Maxwell

“I see that a man cannot give himself up to drinking without being miserable one half his days and mad the other”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXII : Traits of Friendship; Arthur to Helen
Context: 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.

“You cannot expect stone to be as pliable as clay.”

Anne Brontë book Agnes Grey

Source: Agnes Grey