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?

— Anne Brontë

A few cold words on yonder stone, A corpse as cold as they can be -­ Vain words, and bouldering dust, alone -­ Can this be all that's left of thee? O, no! Thy spirit lingers still Where'er thy sunny smile was seen: There's less of darkness, less of chill On earth, than if thou hadst not been. Thou breathes in my bosom yet, And swellest in my beating heart; And, while I cannot quite forget, Thou, darling, canst not quite depart.

— Anne Brontë

After breakfast, determined to pass as little of the day as possible in company with Lady Low borough, I quietly stole away from the company and retired to the library. Mr. Margrave 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.

— Anne Brontë

A little girl loves her bird--Why? Because it lives and feels; because it is helpless and harmless? A toad, likewise, lives and feels, and is equally helpless and harmless; but though she would not hurt a toad, she cannot love it like the bird, with its graceful form, soft feathers, and bright, speaking eyes.

— Anne Brontë

All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity, that the dry, shriveled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut.

— Anne Brontë

Already, I seemed to feel my intellect deteriorating, my heart petrifying, my soul contracting; and Trembled lest my very moral perceptions should become deadened, my distinctions of right and wrong confounded, and all my better faculties be sunk, at last, beneath the baneful influence of such a mode of life. The gross vapors of earth were gathering around me, and closing in upon my inward heaven; and thus it was that Mr. Weston rose at length upon me, appearing like the morning star in my horizon, to save me from the fear of utter darkness; and I rejoiced that I now had a subject for contemplation that was above me, not beneath.

— Anne Brontë

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

— Anne Brontë

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

— Anne Brontë

[B]beauty is that quality which, next to money, is generally the most attractive to the worst kinds of men; and, therefore, it is likely to entail a great deal of trouble on the possessor.

— Anne Brontë

. . . Because we cannot conceive that as we grow up our own minds will become so enlarged and elevated that we ourselves shall then regard as trifling those objects and pursuits we now so fondly cherish, and that, though our companions will no longer join us in those childish pastimes, they will drink with us at other fountains of delight, and mingle their souls with ours in higher aims and nobler occupations beyond our present comprehension, but not less deeply relished or less perfect for that, while yet both we and they remain essentially the same individuals as before.

— Anne Brontë