“If you like poetry let it be first-rate; Milton, Shakespeare, Thomson, Goldsmith, Pope (if you will, though I don't admire him), Scott, Byron, Camp[b]ell, Wordsworth, and Southey. Now don't be startled at the names of Shakespeare and Byron. Both these were great men, and their works are like themselves. You will know how to choose the good and avoid the evil; the finest passages are always the purest, the bad are invariably revolting, you will never wish to read them over twice.”

—  Charlotte Brontë

Letter to Ellen Nussey, 4 July 1834.
The letters of Charlotte Brontë (edited by Margaret Smith), Vol. I: 1829–1847, p. 130

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Charlotte Brontë83
English novelist and poet 1816–1855

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