No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure.
Jane, be still; don’t struggle so like a wild, frantic bird, that is rending its own plumage in its desperation.” “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.
The idea of seeing the sea – of being near it – watching its changes by sunrise, sunset, moonlight, and noonday – in calm, perhaps in storm – fills and satisfies my mind.
Jane Eyre “I desired more…than was within my reach. Who blames me? Many call me discontented. I couldn’t help it: the restlessness is in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes.
Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs.
You — you strange — you almost unearthly thing! — I love as my own flesh. You — poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are — I entreat to accept me as a husband.
