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Emily Brontë Quotes
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Emily Jane Brontë was an English novelist and poet who is best known for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third-eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother Branwell. She wrote under the pen name Ellis Bell.

✵ 30. July 1818 – 19. December 1848   •   Other names Emily Bronteová, ಎಮಿಲಿ ಜೇನ್ ಬ್ರಾಂಟೆ
Emily Brontë photo
Emily Brontë: 151   quotes 52   likes

Emily Brontë Quotes

“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.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

Fear , Forgetting

“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?”

Emily Brontë book Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

Source: Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

Pain , World , Drink , Memory

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

Emily Brontë

Stanza vi.
A Little While, a Little While (1846)
Context: Still, as I mused, the naked room,
The alien firelight died away;
And from the midst of cheerless gloom
I passed to bright, unclouded day.

“But I begin to fancy you don't like me. How strange! I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me. (Catherine Linton, nee Earnshaw)”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

Love , Hate

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

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

People

“I’d be glad of a retaliation that wouldn’t recoil on myself; but treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Isabella Linton (Ch. XVII).
Source: Wuthering Heights (1847)

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

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

Sister

“The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails!”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff (Ch. XIV).
Source: Wuthering Heights (1847)
Context: I have no pity! I have no pity! The more the 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.

“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…”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Mr. Lockwood (Ch. III).
Source: Wuthering Heights (1847)
Context: As it spoke I discerned, obscurely, a child's face looking through the window. 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 bed-clothes: still it wailed, "Let me in!", and maintained its tenacious grip, almost maddening me with fear.

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

Emily Brontë
Death , Feeling

“People feel with their hearts, Ellen: and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

People , Feeling , Heart

“He’s more myself than I am”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

“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!”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff (Ch. XIV).
Source: Wuthering Heights (1847)
Context: 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!

Imagination , Flowers

“Nonsense, do you imagine he has thought as much of you as you have of him?”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

Imagination

“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.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

Life

“The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me,
And I cannot, cannot go.”

Emily Brontë

Spellbound (November 1837)
Context: p>The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow,
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me—
I will not, cannot go.</p

Night

“Heathcliff, make the world stop right here. Make everything stop and stand still and never move again. Make the moors never change and you and I never change.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

World , Change

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

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

Life

“I take so little interest in my daily life, that I hardly remember to eat and drink.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

Life , Drink

“If thou weren't more a lass than a lad, I'd fell thee this minute, I would; pitiful lath of a crater!”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Hareton Earnshaw to Linton Heathcliff (Ch. XXI).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

“No, reprobate! You are a castaway - be off, or I'll hurt you seriously! I'll have you all modeled in wax and clay; and the first who passes the limits I fix, shall — I'll not say what he shall be done to — but, you'll see! Go, I'm looking at you!”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Catherine Linton to Joseph (Ch. III).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

Hurt

“First melted off the hope of youth
Then Fancy's rainbow fast withdrew
And then experience told me truth
In mortal bosoms never grew
'Twas grief enough to think mankind
All hollow servile insincere
But worse to trust to my own mind
And find the same corruption there”

Emily Brontë

I Am the Only Being (1836)

Truth , Youth , Hope , Thinking

“The worst tempered bit of a sickly slip that ever struggled into its teens! Happily, as Mr. Heathcliff conjectured, he'll not win twenty! I doubt whether he'll see spring indeed — and small loss to his family, whenever he drops off; and lucky it is for us that his father took him. The kinder he was treated, the more tedious and selfish he'd be! I'm glad you have no chance of having him for a husband, Miss Catherine!”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Nelly Dean on Linton Heathcliff (Ch. XXIII).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

Family , Spring , Loss , Chance

“You are worse than twenty foes, you poisonous friend!”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Isabella Linton to Catherine Earnshaw (Ch. X).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

“What matters it, that, all around,
Danger, and guilt, and darkness lie,
If but within our bosom's bound
We hold a bright, untroubled sky,
Warm with ten thousand mingled rays
Of suns that know no winter days?”

Emily Brontë

To Imagination (1846)

Lie , Winter , Sun

“"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.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Mr. Lockwood (Ch. I).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

Way , Time , Sun , Housing

“On a mellow evening in September, I was coming from the garden with a heavy basket of apples which I had been gathering. It had got dusk, and the moon looked over the high wall of the court, causing undefined shadows to lurk in the corners of the numerous projecting portions of the building. I set my burden on the house steps by the kitchen door, and lingered to rest, and draw in a few more breaths of the soft, sweet air; my eyes were on the moon, and my back to the entrance, when I heard a voice behind me say”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Nelly Dean (Ch. X).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

Drawing , Housing

“I heard of your marriage, Cathy, not long since; and, while waiting in the yard below, I meditated this plan — just to have one glimpse of your face — a stare of surprise, perhaps, and pretended pleasure; afterward settle my score with Hindley; and then prevent the law by doing execution on myself. Your welcome has put these ideas out of my mind; but beware of meeting me with another aspect next time!”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff (Ch. X).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

Marriage , Pleasure , Law , Idea

“But, thou art ever there, to bring
The hovering vision back, and breathe
New glories o'er the blighted spring,
And call a lovelier Life from Death,
And whisper, with a voice divine,
Of real worlds, as bright as thine.”

Emily Brontë

To Imagination (1846)

Life , Death , World , Art

“Instead of a wild, hatless little savage jumping into the house, and rushing to squeeze us all breathless, there lighted from a handsome black pony a very dignified person with brown ringlets falling from the cover of a feathered beaver, and a long cloth habit which she was obliged to hold up with both hands that she might sail in.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Nelly Dean on Catherine Earnshaw (Ch. VII).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

Light , Housing , Personality , Clothes

“He's such a cobweb, a pinch would annihilate him.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff on Linton Heathcliff (Ch. XXIX).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

“A heaven so clear, an earth so calm,
So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air;
And, deepening still the dreamlike charm,
Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere.”

Emily Brontë

Stanza vii.
A Little While, a Little While (1846)

“They are afraid of nothing," I grumbled, watching their approach through the window. "Together they would brave Satan and all his legions.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Mr. Lockwood (Ch. XXXIV).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

“He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Nelly Dean on Joseph (Ch. V).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

“Cold in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee,
Far, far, removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?”

Emily Brontë

Remembrance (1846)

Love , Time

“Yesterday, you know, Mr. Earnshaw should have been at the funeral. He kept himself sober for the purpose - tolerably sober; not going to bed mad at six o'clock, and getting up drunk at twelve. Consequently he rose, in suicidal low spirits; as fit for the church as for a dance; and instead, he sat down by the fire and swallowed gin or brandy by tumblerfuls.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Isabella Linton (Ch. XVII).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

Suicide , Dance , Madness

“Then let my winds caress thee —
Thy comrade let me be —
Since naught beside can bless thee
Return and dwell with me”

Emily Brontë

Shall Earth No More Inspire Thee (May 1841)

“If I were only sure it would kill him," she interrupted, "I’d kill myself directly! These three awful nights, I’ve never closed my lids — and oh, I’ve been tormented! I’ve been haunted, Nelly! But I begin to fancy you don’t like me. How strange! I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Catherine Earnshaw (Ch. XII).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

Love , Hate , Night

“So hopeless is the world without;
The world within I doubly prize;
Thy world, where guile, and hate, and doubt,
And cold suspicion never rise;
Where thou, and I, and Liberty,
Have undisputed sovereignty.”

Emily Brontë

To Imagination (1846)

Hate , World

“"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!"”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff (Ch. XI).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

God

“Her position before was sheltered from the light: now, I had a distinct view of her whole figure and countenance. She was slender, and apparently scarcely past girlhood: an admirable form, and the most exquisite little face that I have ever had the pleasure of beholding: small features, very fair; flaxen ringlets, or rather golden, hanging loose on her delicate neck; and eyes — had they been agreeable in expression, they would have been irresistible.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Mr. Lockwood on Catherine Linton (Ch. II).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

Pleasure , Light , Past

“Don't you think Hindley would be proud of his son, if he could see him? Almost as proud as I am of mine. But there's this 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 worse than unavailing.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff (Ch. XXI).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

Thinking

“When weary with the long day's care,
And earthly change from pain to pain,
And lost and ready to despair,
Thy kind voice calls me back again:
Oh, my true friend! I am not lone,
While thou canst speak with such a tone!”

Emily Brontë

To Imagination (1846)

Pain , Change , Despair

“Rough as a saw-edge, and hard as whinstone! The less you meddle with him the better.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Nelly Dean on Heathcliff (Ch. IV).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

“My cousin fancies you are an idiot. There you experience the consequence of scorning "book larning," as you would say. Have you noticed, Catherine, his frightful Yorkshire pronunciation?”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Linton Heathcliff to Hareton Earnshaw (Ch. XXI).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

Books

“Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee,
While the world's tide is bearing me along;
Other desires and other hopes beset me,
Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!”

Emily Brontë

Remembrance (1846)

Love , Youth , World , Hope

“No, I’m running on too fast: I bestow my own attributes over-liberally on him.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Mr. Lockwood on Heathcliff (Ch. I).
Wuthering Heights (1847)