Quotes from Charlotte Brontë, Villette

There are certain natures of which the mutual influence is such, that the more they say, the more they have to say. For these out of association grows adhesion, and out of adhesion, amalgamation.

Happiness is the cure—a cheerful mind the preventive: cultivate both.

. . . if there was a hope of comfort for any moment, the heart or head of no human being in this house could yield it . . .

The world, I soon learned, held a different estimate: and I make no doubt, the world is very right in its view, yet believe also that I am not quite wrong in mine.

His veins were dark with a vivid belladonna tincture, the essence of jealousy.

The negation of severe suffering was the nearest approach to happiness I expected to know. Besides, I seemed to hold two lives - the life of thought, and that of reality.

Life is so constructed that an event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation.

The spring which moved my energies lay far away beyond seas, in an Indian isle.

This little man was of the order of beings who must not be opposed, unless you possessed an all-dominant force sufficient to crush him at once.