Emily Brontë Quotes

He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

~ Emily Brontë

If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.

~ Emily Brontë

Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I can not live without my life! I can not live without my soul!

~ Emily Brontë

If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years as I could in a day.

~ Emily Brontë

Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living. You said I killed you--haunt me then. The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe--I know that ghosts have wandered the earth. Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!

~ Emily Brontë

I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.

~ Emily Brontë

You teach me now how cruel you've been - cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they'll blight you - they'll damn you. You loved me - what right had you to leave me? What right - answer me - for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will did it. I have no broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you - Oh, God! would you like to lie with your soul in the grave?

~ Emily Brontë

If you ever looked at me once with what I know is in you, I would be your slave.

~ Emily Brontë

May she wake in torment! he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. Why, she's a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there—not in heaven—not perished—where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—May she wake in torment! he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. Why, she's a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there—not in heaven—not perished—where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!

~ Emily Brontë

I love the ground under his feet, and the air over his head, and everything he touches and every word he says. I love all his looks, and all his actions and him entirely and all together.

~ Emily Brontë

Nelly, I am Heathcliff - he's always, always in my mind - not as a pleasure, any more then I am always a pleasure to myself - but, as my own being.

~ Emily Brontë

And I pray one prayer--I repeat it till my tongue stiffens--Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you--haunt me, then!...Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!

~ Emily Brontë

I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low I shouldn't have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now so he shall never know how I love him and that not because he's handsome Nelly but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of his and mine are the same and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning or frost from fire.

~ Emily Brontë

You know that I could as soon forget you as my existence!

~ Emily Brontë

Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will did it. I have no broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong.

~ Emily Brontë

She burned too bright for this world.

~ Emily Brontë

Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends, they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies.

~ Emily Brontë

If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results.

~ Emily Brontë

And from the midst of cheerless gloomI passed to bright unclouded day.

~ Emily Brontë

Existence, after losing her, would be hell

~ Emily Brontë

LinesI die but when the grave shall pressThe heart so long endeared to theeWhen earthy cares no more distressAnd earthy joys are nought to me.Weep not, but think that I have pastBefore thee o'er the sea of gloom.Have anchored safe and rest at lastWhere tears and mouring can not come.'Tis I should weep to leave thee hereOn that dark ocean sailing drearWith storms around and fears beforeAnd no kind light to point the shore.But long or short though life may be'Tis nothing to eternity.We part below to meet on highWhere blissful ages never die.

~ Emily Brontë

He’s more myself than I am

~ Emily Brontë

Hope Was but a timid friend;She sat without the grated den,Watching how my fate would tend,Even as selfish-hearted men.She was cruel in her fear;Through the bars one dreary day,I looked out to see her there,And she turned her face away!Like a false guard, false watch keeping,Still, in strife, she whispered peace;She would sing while I was weeping;If I listened, she would cease.False she was, and unrelenting;When my last joys strewed the ground,Even Sorrow saw, repenting,Those sad relics scattered round;Hope, whose whisper would have givenBalm to all my frenzied pain,Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven,Went, and ne'er returned again!

~ Emily Brontë

I am seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death... . I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter--the Eternity they have entered--where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fulness.

~ Emily Brontë

And, even yet, I dare not let it languish,Dare not indulge in memory’s rapturous pain;Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,How could I seek the empty world again?

~ Emily Brontë

No coward soul is mine,No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:I see heaven's glories shine,And faith shines equal, arming me from fear

~ Emily Brontë

Hereafter she is only my sister in name; not because I disown her, but because she has disowned me.

~ Emily Brontë

The red firelight glowed on their two bonny heads and revealed their faces, animated with the eager interest of children; for, though he was twenty-three and she eighteen, each had so much of novelty to feel, and learn, that neither experienced nor evinced the sentiments of sober disenchanted maturity.

~ Emily Brontë

The clock strikes off the hollow half-hours of all the life that is left to you, one by one.

~ Emily Brontë

Love is like the wild rose-briar; Friendship like the holly-tree. The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms, but which will bloom most constantly?

~ Emily Brontë

I have dreamt in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind. And this is one: I'm going to tell it - but take care not to smile at any part of it.

~ Emily Brontë

I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.

~ Emily Brontë

I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung my out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy. That will do to explain my secret, as well as the other. I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn't have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, but because he's more myself than I am. What ever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.'Ere this speech ended, I became sensible of Heathcliff's presence. Having noticed a slight movement, I turned my head, and saw him rise from the bench, and steal out noiselessly. He had listened till he heard Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him, and then he stayed to hear no further.

~ Emily Brontë

A person who has not done one half his day's work by ten o'clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.

~ Emily Brontë

I’ll walk, but not in old heroic traces,And not in paths of high morality,And not among the half-distinguished faces,The clouded forms of long-past history.I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading:It vexes me to choose another guide:Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding;Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side.

~ Emily Brontë

Gimmerton chapel bells were still ringing and the full, mellow flow of the beck in the valley came soothingly on the ear. It was a sweet substitute for the yet absent murmur of the summer foliage, which drowned that music about the Grange when the trees were in leaf.

~ Emily Brontë

... In the chamber of death... I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter-the Eternity they have entered-where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fullness... One might doubt in seasons of cold reflection; but not then in the presence of her corpse. It asserted its own tranquility, which seemed a pledge of equal quiet to its former inhabitant.

~ Emily Brontë

... He spoke in the deep tenderness of one about to leave his treasure amid perils and foes, where his remembered words would be the only aid he could bequeath to guide her.

~ Emily Brontë

... You are ignorant of the duties you undertake in marrying...

~ Emily Brontë

I have not broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.

~ Emily Brontë