21 Jane Eyre Quotes About Love, Life and Independence
One of my all time favourite books, Jane Eyre was written by Charlotte Bronte and first published in 1847. While it’s now considered to be a classic work of literature, Jane Eyre received a mixed reception at first, with initial reviewers finding that the novel went against Christian values.
This perception changed as time went on, and as feminist values became more popular. Jane Eyre has since been adapted into a number of films and stage productions around the world, as well as a notable television series in 2006. Today, you’ll even find a manga adaption which was published in 2016 as part of UDON Entertainment’s Manga Classics series.
The book discusses a wide variety of themes that make it a popular choice for students, including love, life and independence.
Synopsis:
“Charlotte Brontë tells the story of orphaned Jane Eyre, who grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic, brooding Mr Rochester.
As her feelings for Rochester develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall's terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice. Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions - even if it means leaving the man she loves? A novel of intense power and intrigue, Jane Eyre dazzled readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and freedom.”
You can buy a copy on Amazon here.
Quotes About Independence
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
"Do you think I am an automaton?—a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! I have as much soul as you—and full as much heart!”
“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, to absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags.”
“I am not an angel,' I asserted; 'and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me - for you will not get it, any more than I shall get it of you: which I do not at all anticipate.”
“I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss.”
“I do not think, sir, you have a right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.”
“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”
Quotes About Life
“I would always rather be happy than dignified.”
“Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine.”
“Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.”
“The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter - often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter - in the eye.”
“It is a pity that doing one’s best does not always answer.”
“Conventionality is not morality.”
“Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive.”
“I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had the courage to go forth into it’s expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst it’s perils.”
Quotes About Love
“It does good to no woman to be flattered [by a man] who does not intend to marry her; and it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if discovered and responded to, must lead, ignis-fatuus-like, into miry wilds whence there is no extrication.”
“All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence forever.”
“I ask you to pass through life at my side—to be my second self, and best earthly companion.”
“There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.”
“I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously revived, great and strong! He made me love him without looking at me.”
“Reader, I married him.”
Do you have a favourite quote from Jane Eyre? Leave a comment and let me know!
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