Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

"I’ll tell you a piece of news--I hope you have not heard it before: for good, bad, or indifferent, one always likes to be the first to tell."

"A spirit of candor and frankness, when wholly unaccompanied with coarseness, headmired in others, but he could not acquire it himself."

"I see that a man cannot give himself up to drinking without being miserable one-half his days and mad the other."

"I thought Mr. Millward never would cease telling us that he was no tea-drinker, and that it was highly injurious to keep loading the stomach with slops to the exclusion of more wholesome sustenance, and so give himself time to finish his fourth cup."

"Is it that they think it a duty to be continually talking,' pursued she: 'and so never pause to think, but fill up with aimless trifles and vain repetitions when subjects of real interest fail to present themselves? - or do they really take a pleasure in such discourse''Very likely they do,' said I; 'their shallow minds can hold no great ideas, and their light heads are carried away by trivialities that would not move a better-furnished skull; - and their only alternative to such discourse is to plunge over head and ears into the slough of scandal - which is their chief delight."

"You may think it all very fine, Mr. Huntingdon, to amuse yourself with rousing my jealousy; but take care you don't rouse my hate instead. And when you have once extinguished my love, you will find it no easy matter to kindle it again."

"Adieu! but let me cherish, still, The hope with which I cannot part. Contempt may wound, and coldness chill, But still it lingers in my heart. And who can tell but Heaven, at last, May answer all my thousand prayers, And bid the future pay the past With joy for anguish, smiles for tears?"

"I shall expect my husband to have no pleasures but what he shares with me; and if his greatest pleasure of all is not the enjoyment of my company - why - it will be the worse for him - that's all.''If such are your expectations of matrimony, Esther, you must, indeed, be careful whom you marry - or rather, you must avoid it altogether."

"Though in single life your joys may not be very many, your sorrows, at least will not be more than you can bear. Marriage may change your circumstances for the better, but in my private opinion, it is far more likely to produce a contrary result"

"After breakfast, determined to pass as little of the day as possible in company with Lady Lowborough, I quietly stole away from the company and retired to the library. Mr. Hargrave followed me thither, under pretence of coming for a book; and first, turning to the shelves, he selected a volume, and then quietly, but by no means timidly, approaching me, he stood beside me, resting his hand on the back of my chair, and said softly, ‘And so you consider yourself free at last?’‘Yes,’ said I, without moving, or raising my eyes from my book, ‘free to do anything but offend God and my conscience."

"There is another life both for you and for me,’ said I. ‘If it be the will of God that we should sow in tears now, it is only that we may reap in joy hereafter. It is His will that we should not injure others by the gratification of our own earthly passions; and you have a mother, and sisters, and friends who would be seriously injured by your disgrace; and I, too, have friends, whose peace of mind shall never be sacrificed to my enjoyment, or yours either, with my consent; and if I were alone in the world, I have still my God and my religion, and I would sooner die than disgrace my calling and break my faith with heaven to obtain a few brief years of false and fleeting happiness—happiness sure to end in misery even here—for myself or any other!"

"Well, to tell you the truth, I've thought of it often and often before, but he's such devilish good company is Huntingdon, after all - you can't imagine what a jovial good fellow he is when he's not fairly drunk, only just primed or half-seas-over - we all have a bit of a liking for him at the bottom of our hearts, though we can't respect him.''But should you wish yourself to be like him''No, I'd rather be like myself, bad as I am."

"I don’t know how to talk to you, Mrs. Huntingdon . . . you are only half a woman--your nature must be half human, half angelic. Such goodness overawes me; I don’t know what to make of it."

"And so you prefer her faults to other people’s perfections?"

". . . I should wish you to think more deeply, to look further, and aim higher than you do."

"If you would really study my pleasure, mother, you must consider your own comfort and convenience a little more than you do."

"If you would have a boy to despise his mother, let her keep him at home, and spend her life in petting him up, and slaving to indulge his follies and caprices."

"God is Infinite Wisdom, and Power, and Goodness - and LOVE; but if this idea is too vast for your human faculties - if your mind loses itself in its overwhelming infinitude, fix it on Him who condescended to take our nature upon Him, who was raised to Heaven even in His glorified human body, in whom the fulness of the Godhead shines."

"God might awaken that heart, supine and stupefied with self-indulgence, and remove the film of sensual darkness from his eyes, but I could not."

"No one can be happy in eternal solitude."