“What have I to do with millions [of people]? The eighty I know despise me.”

—  Charlotte Brontë , book Jane Eyre

Jane to Helen Burns (Ch. 8)
Jane Eyre (1847)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "What have I to do with millions [of people]? The eighty I know despise me." by Charlotte Brontë?
Charlotte Brontë photo
Charlotte Brontë 83
English novelist and poet 1816–1855

Related quotes

“Ay, do despise me! I'm the prouder for it; I like to be despised.”

Isaac Bickerstaffe (1733–1812) Irish playwright and librettist

The Hypocrite (1768), Act v, scene 1.

“I am what you might call a controversial figure: people either hate me or despise me.”

Brother Theodore (1906–2001) German-American monologuist and comedian
David Levithan photo

“I have always been aware of how I break.
I know what kind of situations will break me.
I know what kind of people will do it.
I know how much it will hurt.”

David Levithan book Every You, Every Me

Source: Every You, Every Me

Richard Dawkins photo

“I am often accused of expressing contempt and despising religious people. I don't despise religious people, I despise what they stand for. I like to quote the British journalist Johann Hari who said, "I have so much respect for you, that I cannot respect your ridiculous ideas."”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author
Martti Ahtisaari photo

“Since I know that about a million people have been killed by the government of Iraq, I do not need much those weapons of mass destruction.”

Martti Ahtisaari (1937) Finnish politician and former President of Finland

Defending the US government decision to invade Iraq, as quoted in "Nobel Finn" in Wall Street Journal (11 October 2008) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122367870922824537.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Orson Scott Card photo

“I do matter, and despising me was the gravest error of their lives.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Homecoming saga, The Ships Of Earth (1994)

Dorothy Thompson photo

“For Hitler first hatred was not Communism, but Austria-Hungry... And he loathed it for what? For its tolerance! He wanted eighty million Germans to rule with an iron hand an empire of eighty million ‘inferiors’—Czechs, Slovaks, Magyars, Jews, Serbs, Poles and Croats.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Source: "Let the Record Speak" 1939, p. 136 (newspaper column: “Write it Down,” February 18, 1938)

Donald J. Trump photo

“I know South Korea better than anybody, it's a very tight — do you know how many people are in Seoul? Do you know how big the city of Seoul is? 38 million people. That's bigger than anything we have.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Trump talking about Seoul, which is a city with 10 million people according to the city government's English language website. As quoted by * 2020-03-30

Trump tried to flex by asking a reporter about the population of Seoul. Then he got it wrong by 28 million.

Jake Lahut

Business Insider

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-trump-got-the-population-of-seoul-wrong-by-millions-2020-3?r=US&IR=T
2020s, 2020, March

Gilbert O'Sullivan photo

“Sometimes I think I don't know what I'm doing
but I always end up doing what I know.
And what I know may not, I know, be a great deal
but what I know nobody can take,
nobody can take, nobody can take away from me,
no, no, no. Away from me, no, no, no.
I do what I know. Doing what I know.
Sometimes I think I don't know what I'm doing
but I always end up doing what I know.
Away we go, doing what I know.”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"Doing What I Know" (song)
Song lyrics
Source: Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Doing What I Know" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlkC9AFrSNU (song on YouTube)

Natasha Lyonne photo

“Look, I’m not thrilled that perfect strangers get to have an opinion about me or feel like they know me, but I have enough perspective to know they don’t know me, and I do have a life and I don’t live it for other people.”

Natasha Lyonne (1979) actress

As quoted in "Spoonful of Sugar : Natasha Lyonne’s Sweet Comeback" by Shira Levine, in Heeb Magazine (20 January 2009)
Context: Look, I’m not thrilled that perfect strangers get to have an opinion about me or feel like they know me, but I have enough perspective to know they don’t know me, and I do have a life and I don’t live it for other people.… My reality is very different from what everyone read. The problem is because I did get myself in a lot of trouble, I didn’t get to do the kind of work that maybe I should have been doing, so it became confusing who I really am and what I am really about … It’s totally fucking strange to me that people took a lot of that fucking stuff seriously. … It’s not their fault that they don’t know me personally. Who’s got the time?

Related topics