Emily Brontë - Wuthering Heights (1847)

85 Sourced Quotes

View all Emily Brontë Quotes
I take so little interest in my daily life, that I hardly remember to eat and drink.

Emily Brontë
Time brought resignation and a melancholy sweeter than common joy.

Emily Brontë
I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.

Emily Brontë
I have such faith in Linton's love that I believe I might kill him, and he wouldn't wish to retaliate.

Emily Brontë
You have been compelled to cultivate your reflective faculties for want of occasions for frittering away your life on silly trifles.

Emily Brontë
"Cathy, this lamb of yours threatens like a bull!" he said. "It is in danger of splitting its skull against my knuckles. By God, Mr Linton, I'm mortally sorry that you are not worth knocking down!"

Emily Brontë
Don't you think Hindley would be proud of his son, if he could see him? Almost as proud as I am of mine. But there's this difference, one is gold put to the use of paving stones; and the other is tin polished to ape a service of silver. Mine has nothing valuable about it; yet I shall have the merit of making it go as far as such poor stuff can go. His had first-rate qualities, and they are lost — rendered worse than unavailing.

Emily Brontë
What vain weathercocks we are! I, who had determined to hold myself independent of all social intercourse, and thanked my stars that at length I had lighted on a spot where it was next to impracticable. I, weak wretch, after maintaining till dusk a struggle with low spirits and solitude, was finally compelled to strike my colours; and under pretence of gaining information concerning the necessities of my establishment, I desired Mrs. Dean.

Emily Brontë
I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine; 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. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have; the sea could be as readily contained in that house-trough as her whole affection be monopolized by him. Tush! He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse. It is not in him to be loved like me; how can she love in him what he has not?

Emily Brontë
Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves. But if you be afraid of your touchiness, you must ask pardon, mind, when she comes in.

Emily Brontë
We must be for ourselves in the long run; the mild and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering.

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
You talk of her mind being unsettled - how the devil could it be otherwise, in her frightful isolation? And that insipid, paltry creature attending her from duty and humanity! From pity and charity. He might as well plant an oak in a flower-pot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigour in the soil of his shallow cares!

Emily Brontë
However, it's over, and I'll take no revenge on his folly – I can afford to suffer anything, hereafter! Should the meanest thing alive slap me on the cheek, I'd not only turn the other, but I'd ask pardon for provoking it – and, as proof, I'll go make my peace with Edgar instantly – Good night – I'm an angel!

Emily Brontë
I've done no injustice, and I repent of nothing. I'm too happy, and yet I'm not happy enough. My soul's bliss kills my body, but does not satisfy itself.

Emily Brontë
My cousin fancies you are an idiot. There you experience the consequence of scorning "book larning," as you would say. Have you noticed, Catherine, his frightful Yorkshire pronunciation?

Emily Brontë
On a mellow evening in September, I was coming from the garden with a heavy basket of apples which I had been gathering. It had got dusk, and the moon looked over the high wall of the court, causing undefined shadows to lurk in the corners of the numerous projecting portions of the building. I set my burden on the house steps by the kitchen door, and lingered to rest, and draw in a few more breaths of the soft, sweet air; my eyes were on the moon, and my back to the entrance, when I heard a voice behind me say —

Emily Brontë
That is how I'm loved! Well, never mind. That is not my Heathcliff. I shall love mine yet; and take him with me: he's in my soul.

Emily Brontë
He had the hypocrisy to represent a mourner: and previous to following with Hareton, he lifted the unfortunate child on to the table and muttered, with peculiar gusto, 'Now, my bonny lad, you are mine! And we'll see if one tree won't grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it!

Emily Brontë
He turned, as he spoke, a peculiar look in her direction, a look of hatred unless he has a most perverse set of facial muscles that will not, like those of other people, interpret the language of his soul.

Emily Brontë
I have to remind myself to breathe — almost to remind my heart to beat!

Emily Brontë
If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable." "Because you are not fit to go there," I answered. "All sinners would be miserable in heaven.

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

Emily Brontë
I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when every thing is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished! My old enemies have not beaten me — now would be the precise time to revenge myself on their representatives. I could do it, and none could hinder me; but where is the use? I don't care for striking — I can't take the trouble to raise my hand! That sounds as if I had been labouring the whole time only to exhibit a fine trait of magnanimity. It is far from being the case. I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.

Emily Brontë
The worst tempered bit of a sickly slip that ever struggled into its teens! Happily, as Mr. Heathcliff conjectured, he'll not win twenty! I doubt whether he'll see spring indeed — and small loss to his family, whenever he drops off; and lucky it is for us that his father took him. The kinder he was treated, the more tedious and selfish he'd be! I'm glad you have no chance of having him for a husband, Miss Catherine!

Emily Brontë