I have this habit of having to mark tidbits I find
fascinating when reading, or when I come across an interesting verse during a
sermon or class. Normally, I bend the corner of the page over to mark it.
Sometimes however, I tend to fail at returning to the marked passage later on and
they pile up. I opened up my Bible to this:
It begins to make finding passages difficult. :P Anyway, I
found Jane Eyre to have a lot of noteworthy, page bending content in it. So I
figured I’d post some quotes that I like.
99- I don’t 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.
136- Why can she not influence him more, when she is
privileged to draw so near to him? I asked myself. Surely she cannot truly like
him, or not like him with true affection! If she did, she need not coin her
smiles so lavishly, flash her glances so unremittingly, manufacture airs so
elaborate, graces so multitudinous. It seems to me that she might, by merely
sitting quietly at his side, saying little and looking less, get nigher his
heart. I have seen in his face a far different expression from that which
hardens it now while she is so vivaciously accosting him; but then it came of
itself: it was not elicited by meretricious arts and calculated manoeuvres; and
one had but to accept it- to answer what he asked without pretension, to
address him when needful without grimace- and it increased and grew kinder and
more genial, and warmed one like a fostering sunbeam.
171- True, generous feeling is made small account of by
some, but here were two natures rendered, the one intolerably acrid, the other
despicably savourless for the want of it. Feeling without judgment is a washy
draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a
morsel for human deglutition.
228- Still indomitable was the reply- “I care for myself.
The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I
will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I
will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad- as I
am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation:
they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against
their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual
convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth-
so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am
insane- quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster
than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations,
are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.”
244- Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to
eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by
education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.
267- Reserved people often really need the frank discussion
of their sentiments and griefs more than the expansive. The sternest-seeming
stoic is human after all; and to “burst” with boldness and good-will into “the
silent sea” of their souls is often to confer on them the first of obligations.
287- I know no medium: I never in my life have known any
medium in my dealings with positive, hard characters, antagonistic to my own,
between absolute submission and determined revolt. I have always faithfully
observed the one, up to the very moment of bursting, sometimes with volcanic
vehemence, into the other.
302- My spirit is willing to do what is right; and my flesh,
I hope, is strong enough to accomplish the will of Heaven, when once that will
is distinctly known to me. At any rate, it shall be strong enough to search-
inquire- to grope an outlet from this cloud of doubt, and find the open day of
certainty.
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