The Best Jane Eyre Quotes With Page Numbers
This list of Jane Eyre quotes with page numbers is perfect for any fan of Charlotte Bronte’s famous novel, Jane Eyre!
Jane Eyre is a classic novel written by Charlotte Bronte in 1847, and is centered around the life of a deeply passionate, mistreated orphan, Jane Eyre.
Jane has been taken in by her aunt, Mrs. Reed, who cannot stand the young girl’s independent will and her own opinions, and does not stop the ill treatment her son, John Reed, inflicts upon her niece.
Jane is eventually sent to the Lowood school for girls, which is run by the cruel Mr. Brocklehurst. There she meets her first real friends, fellow student Helen Burns, and the kind teacher, Miss Temple.
After years as a student at the school, Jane finishes her education and becomes a teacher there, where she works until she is eighteen years old.
The monotony of the daily routine at the school becomes more than Jane can bear, and she decides she must find employment elsewhere.
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After advertising as a governess, she receives a letter offering her a position to be the governess of a young girl, which she gladly accepts. Her position of governess is in a large house owned by the mysterious Mr. Rochester.
At first cold and aloof, Mr. Rochester comes to treat Jane as a confidante and friend, yet strange events in the old house lead Jane to uneasy feelings, and when she asks Mr. Rochester or the housekeeper about them, both are quick to blame one of the seemingly innocent servants.
Jane Eyre is a beautiful, chilling, and captivating masterpiece. And Jane, with her quiet strength and kindness, is one of my favorite literary heroines of all time.
I have made a list of some of the best Jane Eyre quotes, along with the page number so you can easily find them in the book. Quotes are in order of appearance.
I took these quotes from this Penguin Classics version of Jane Eyre.
Jane Eyre Quotes with Page Numbers
“Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet her hour for complete victory: my blood was still warm; the mood of the revolted slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigour.”
Page 18
“Human beings must love something, and, in the dearth of worthier objects of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded graven image, shabby as a miniature scarecrow. It puzzles me now to remember with what absurd sincerity I doted on this little toy, half fancying it alive and capable of sensation.”
Page 35
“Ere I had finished this reply, my soul began to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It seemed as if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out into unhoped-for liberty.”
Page 44
“I opened the glass-door in the breakfast-room: the shrubbery was quite still: the black frost reigned, unbroken by sun or breeze, through the grounds. I covered my head and arms with the skirt of my frock, and went out to walk in a part of the plantation which was quite sequestrated; but I found no pleasure in the silent trees, the falling fir-cones, the congealed relics of autumn, russet leaves, swept by past winds in heaps, and now stiffened together.”
Page 46
“Probably, if I had lately left a good home and kind parents, this would have been the hour when I should most keenly have regretted the separation: that wind would then have saddened my heart; this obscure chaos would have disturbed my peace: as it was, I derived from both a strange excitement, and reckless and feverish, I wished the wind to howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and the confusion to rise to clamour.”
Page 65
“A greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshing daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.”
Page 90
“April advanced to May- a bright serene May it was; days of blue sky, placid sunshine, and soft western or southern gales filled up its duration.”
Page 91
“Its garden, too, glowed with flowers: hollyhocks had sprung up tall as trees, lilies had opened, tulips and roses were in bloom; the borders of the little beds were gay with pink thrift and crimson double daisies; the sweetbriars gave out, morning and evening, their scent of spice and apples; and these fragrant treasures were all useless for most of the inmates of Lowood, except to furnish now and then a handful of herbs and blossoms to put in a coffin.”
Page 92
“I tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon. I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing.”
Page 102
“It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. 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, too 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. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.”
Pages 102-130
“Something of daylight still lingered, and the moon was waxing bright: I could see him plainly. His figure was enveloped in a riding cloak, fur collared and steel clasped; its details were not apparent, but I traced the general points of middle height, and considerable breadth of chest. He had a dark face, with stern features and a heavy brow; his eyes and gathered eyebrows looked ireful and thwarted just now; he was past youth, but had not yet reached middle age; perhaps he might be thirty-five. I felt no fear of him, and but little shyness. Had he been a handsome, heroic-looking young gentleman, I should not have dared to stand thus questioning him against his will, and offering my services unasked. I had hardly ever seen a handsome youth; never in my life spoken to one.”
Page 134
“Little things recall us to earth: the clock struck in the hall; that sufficed. I turned from moon and stars, opened a side-door, and went in.”
Page 137
“‘Know, that in the course of your future life you will often find yourself elected the involuntary confidante of you acquaintances’ secrets: people will instinctively find out, as I have done, that it is not your forte to tell of yourself, but to listen while others talk of themselves; they will feel, too, that you listen with no malevolent scorn of their indiscretion, but with a kind of innate sympathy; not less unobtrusive in its manifestations.”
Page 159
“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, green and strong! He made me love him without looking at me.”
Page 203
“‘I can live alone, if self-respect and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.'”
Page 233
“I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you–especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapped; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you–you’d forget me.'”
Page 291
“‘Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? 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! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh; – it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal — as we are!'”
Page 292
“‘I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.'”
Page 293
“I ask you to pass through life at my side–to be my second self, and best earthly companion.”
Page 293
“Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot. There was such deep remorse in his eye, such true pity in his tone, such manly energy in his manner: and besides, there was such unchanged love in his whole look and mien — I forgave him all: yet not in words, not outwardly; only at my heart’s core.”
Page 344
“‘After a youth and manhood passed half in unutterable misery and half in dreary solitude, I have for the first time found what I can truly love– I have found you. You are my sympathy– my better self — my good angel. I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wraps my existence about you, and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.'”
Page 363
“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.”
Page 365
“We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence.”
Page 373
Final Thoughts on Jane Eyre Quotes with Page Numbers
I hope you’ve enjoyed this list of the best Jane Eyre quotes with page numbers!
This is Charlotte Bronte’s most famous novel and is filled with some very dynamic and passionate quotes.
What are your favorite quotes from Jane Eyre?
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