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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
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Emily Brontë: 151   quotes 52   likes

Emily Brontë Quotes

“His brightening mind brightened his features, and added spirit and nobility to their aspect.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Nelly Dean on Hareton (Ch. XXXIII).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

“Oh, if God would but give me strength to strangle him in my last agony, I’d go to hell with joy.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Hindley Earnshaw (Ch. XVII).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

God , Hell , Joy

“I've done no injustice, and I repent of nothing. I'm too happy, and yet I'm not happy enough. My soul's bliss kills my body, but does not satisfy itself.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

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

Soul , Happiness

“What vain weathercocks we are! I, who had determined to hold myself independent of all social intercourse, and thanked my stars that at length I had lighted on a spot where it was next to impracticable. I, weak wretch, after maintaining till dusk a struggle with low spirits and solitude, was finally compelled to strike my colours; and under pretence of gaining information concerning the necessities of my establishment, I desired Mrs. Dean.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

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

Star , Solitude , Light

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

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

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

“A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad", I continued, "if you were a regular black, and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

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

Help , Heart

“But when the days of golden dreams had perished,
And even Despair was powerless to destroy;
Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,
Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy.”

Emily Brontë

Remembrance (1846)

Dreams , Learning , Joy , Despair

“Reason, indeed, may oft complain
For Nature's sad reality,
And tell the suffering heart, how vain
Its cherished dreams must always be;
And Truth may rudely trample down
The flowers of Fancy, newly-blown:”

Emily Brontë

To Imagination (1846)

Truth , Sadness , Dreams , Flowers

“Yes, as my swift days near their goal
'Tis all that I implore
In life and death a chainless soul
With courage to endure”

Emily Brontë

The Old Stoic (1846)

Life , Death , Soul , Courage

“I assure you, a tiger, or a venomous serpent could not rouse terror in me equal to that which he wakens.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Isabella Linton on Heathcliff (Ch. XIII).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

“The winter wind is loud and wild,
Come close to me, my darling child;
Forsake thy books, and mateless play;
And, while the night is gathering grey,
We'll talk its pensive hours away;”

Emily Brontë

Faith and Despondency (1846)

Books , Winter , Night

“The boy was fully occupied with his own cogitations for the remainder of the ride, till we halted before the farmhouse garden gate. I watched to catch his impressions in his countenance. He surveyed the carved front and low-browed lattices, the straggling gooseberry bushes, and crooked firs, with solemn intentness, and then shook his head; his private feelings entirely disapproved of the exterior of his new abode. But he had sense to postpone complaining — there might be compensation within.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

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

Feeling , Boy , Sense

“I went to hide little Hareton, and to take the shot out of the master’s fowling-piece, which he was fond of playing with in his insane excitement, to the hazard of the lives of any who provoked, or even attracted his notice too much; and I had hit upon the plan of removing it, that he might do less mischief if he did go the length of firing the gun.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

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

“He comes with western winds, with evening's wandering airs,
With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars;
Winds take a pensive tone and stars a tender fire
And visions rise and change which kill me with desire.”

Emily Brontë

The Prisoner (October 1845)

Star , Change

“My walk home was lengthened by a diversion in the direction of the kirk. When beneath its walls, I perceived decay had made progress, even in seven months - many a window showed black gaps deprived of glass; and slates jutted off, here and there, beyond the right line of the roof, to be gradually worked off in coming autumn storms.

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 harebells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

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

Home , Imagination , Autumn , Grass

“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 am going to her, I shall be sorry that I must leave them!””

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Will you say so, Heathcliff?
Catherine Earnshaw (Ch. XV).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

Love , Death , Children , Suffering

“I trust not to thy phantom bliss,
Yet, still, in evening's quiet hour,
With never-failing thankfulness,
I welcome thee, Benignant Power;
Sure solacer of human cares,
And sweeter hope, when hope despairs!”

Emily Brontë

To Imagination (1846)

Hope , Despair

“I have such faith in Linton's love that I believe I might kill him, and he wouldn't wish to retaliate.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

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

Love , Faith

“You are welcome to torture me to death for your amusement; only allow me to amuse myself a little in the same style. And refrain from insult as much as you are able. Having levelled my palace, don't erect a hovel and complacently admire your own charity in giving me that for a home. If I imagined you really wished me to marry Isabel, I'd cut my throat!”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

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

Death , Home , Imagination

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

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

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

Dead

“The thing that irks me most is this shattered prison, after all. I’m tired, tired of being enclosed here. 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.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

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

World , Tear , Heart

“Cathy, this lamb of yours threatens like a bull!”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

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

“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.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

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

Clothes , Fear

“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.”

Emily Brontë

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

“Shall Earth no more inspire thee,
Thou lonely dreamer now?
Since passion may not fire thee
Shall Nature cease to bow?
Thy mind is ever moving
In regions dark to thee;
Recall its useless roving —
Come back and dwell with me”

Emily Brontë

Shall Earth No More Inspire Thee (May 1841)

Passion , Nature

“I am the only being whose doom
No tongue would ask no eye would mourn
I never caused a thought of gloom
A smile of joy since I was born
In secret pleasure — secret tears
This changeful life has slipped away
As friendless after eighteen years
As lone as on my natal day”

Emily Brontë

I Am the Only Being (1836)

Pleasure , Secret , Change , Smile

“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.”

Emily Brontë

Spellbound (November 1837)

Tree , Night

“But first a hush of peace, a soundless calm descends;
The struggle of distress and fierce impatience ends
Mute music sooths my breast — unuttered harmony
That I could never dream till earth was lost to me.

Then dawns the Invisible; the Unseen its truth reveals;
My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels —
Its wings are almost free, its home, its harbour found;
Measuring the gulf, it stoops and dares the final bound —

O, 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.

Yet I would lose no sting, would wish no torture less;
The more that anguish racks the earlier it will bless;
And robed in fires of Hell, or bright with heavenly shine
If it but herald Death, the vision is divine —”

Emily Brontë

The Prisoner (October 1845)

Home , Soul , Hell , Thinking

“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.

O God within my breast,
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life — that in me has rest,
As I — undying Life — have power in Thee!

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

Emily Brontë

No Coward Soul Is Mine (1846)

Soul , God , World , Fear

“With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

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

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.”

Emily Brontë

No Coward Soul Is Mine (1846)

Universe , Change , Sun , Art