“I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.”

—  Emily Brontë , book Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff (Ch. XXXIII).
Source: Wuthering Heights (1847)
Context: I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when every thing is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished! My old enemies have not beaten me — now would be the precise time to revenge myself on their representatives. I could do it, and none could hinder me; but where is the use? I don't care for striking — I can't take the trouble to raise my hand! That sounds as if I had been labouring the whole time only to exhibit a fine trait of magnanimity. It is far from being the case. I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.

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 "I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing." by Emily Brontë?
Emily Brontë photo
Emily Brontë 151
English novelist and poet 1818–1848

Related quotes

George Wallace photo

“There is no need for him to call on me. I am not about to be a party to anything having to do with the law that is going to destroy individual freedom and liberty in this country. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that will destroy our free enterprise system. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that will destroy neighborhood schools. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that will destroy the rights of private property. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that destroys your right --and my right -- to choose my neighbors -- or to sell my house to whomever I choose. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that destroys the labor seniority system. I am having nothing to do with this so-called civil rights bill. The liberal left-wingers have passed it. Now let them employ some pinknik social engineers in Washington, D. C., to figure out what to do with it.”

George Wallace (1919–1998) 45th Governor of Alabama

Speech http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1951-/speech-by-george-c-wallace-the-civil-rights-movement-fraud-sham-and-hoax-1964-.php (4 July 1964)
1960s

Barbara Jordan photo

“My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.”

Barbara Jordan (1936–1996) American politician

Statement before the House Judiciary Committee considering impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon (25 July 1974). (See External links)

Norodom Sihanouk photo

“Cambodia only protests against the destruction of the property and lives of Cambodians. All I can say is that I cannot make a protest as long as I am not informed. But I will protest if there is any destruction of Khmer life and property.
Here it is - the first report about several B-52 bombings. Yet I have not been informed about that at all, because I have not lost any houses, any countrymen, nothing, nothing. Nobody was caught in those barrages - nobody, Cambodians.”

Norodom Sihanouk (1922–2012) Cambodian King

Stated two months (May 13, 1969) after American bombings in Cambodia began, as quoted by Henry Kissinger (2000), Years of Renewal, page 498.

Henry David Thoreau photo

“I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

His last letter, to Myron Benton (31 March 1862) http://www.walden.org/Institute/thoreau/writings/correspondence/1862_03_21_Benton.htm
Context: You ask particularly after my health. I suppose that I have not many months to live; but, of course, I know nothing about it. I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.

Jerome K. Jerome photo

“It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

"On Being Idle".
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Anne Brontë photo

“I possess the faculty of enjoying the company of those I — of my friends as well in silence as in conversation.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. IX : A Snake in the Grass; Gilbert to Helen

Harriet Beecher Stowe photo

“I am braver than I was because I have lost all; and he who has nothing to lose can afford all risks.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Source: Uncle Tom's Cabin

“I lost nothing I regret losing," Witch said softly. "I am what I want to be.”

Anne Bishop (1955) American fiction writer

Source: Dreams Made Flesh

Mary Wollstonecraft photo

“Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world; and this is not a woman's province in a married state.”

Mary Wollstonecraft book Thoughts on the Education of Daughters

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), "Matrimony", p. 100
Context: Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world; and this is not a woman's province in a married state. Her sphere of action is not large, and if she is not taught to look into her own heart, how trivial are her occupations and pursuits! What little arts engross and narrow her mind!

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle photo

“Behold a universe so immense that I am lost in it. I no longer know where I am. I am just nothing at all. Our world is terrifying in its insignificance.”

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657–1757) French writer, satirist and philosopher of enlightenment

Conversations with a Lady on the Plurality of Worlds or Etretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes (1686) as quoted by Mark Brake, Alien Life Imagined: Communicating the Science and Culture of Astrobiology (2012)

Related topics