By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Sign In
SevenovSevenovSevenov
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
  • Fiction
    • Adventure
    • Children’s Literature
    • Comedy
    • Coming-of-age
    • Drama
    • Fairy Tale
    • Fantasy
    • Gothic
    • Historical
    • Horror
    • Mystery
    • Realistic
    • Romance
    • Science Fiction
    • Short Story
    • Short Story Collection
    • Tragedy
    • Wuxia
  • Non-fiction
    • Biographies
    • Essay
    • Travel
  • Plays
    • Comedy
    • Historical
    • Political Fiction
    • Realistic
  • Poetry
  • Authors
    • Era
      • 16th to 17th Century
      • 18th Century
      • 19th Century
      • 20th Century
  • People
  • Characters
    • Characters List
    • Gender
      • Female
      • Male
  • Literary Haven
    • Fiction
    • Poems
    • Bibliography
    • Book Recommendations
    • Poetry Recommendations
    • Stage Play Recommendations
    • Occasions
  • Downloads
    • Free Literature Wallpapers
    • Free Poetry Posters
    • Free Bookish Calendars
  • Shop
Reading: 34 Best Shirley Quotes
Share
SevenovSevenov
Font ResizerAa
  • Fiction
  • Non-fiction
  • Plays
  • Poetry
  • Authors
  • People
  • Characters
  • Literary Haven
  • Downloads
  • Shop
Search
  • Fiction
    • Adventure
    • Children’s Literature
    • Comedy
    • Coming-of-age
    • Drama
    • Fairy Tale
    • Fantasy
    • Gothic
    • Historical
    • Horror
    • Mystery
    • Realistic
    • Romance
    • Science Fiction
    • Short Story
    • Short Story Collection
    • Tragedy
    • Wuxia
  • Non-fiction
    • Biographies
    • Essay
    • Travel
  • Plays
    • Comedy
    • Historical
    • Political Fiction
    • Realistic
  • Poetry
  • Authors
    • Era
  • People
  • Characters
    • Characters List
    • Gender
  • Literary Haven
    • Fiction
    • Poems
    • Bibliography
    • Book Recommendations
    • Poetry Recommendations
    • Stage Play Recommendations
    • Occasions
  • Downloads
    • Free Literature Wallpapers
    • Free Poetry Posters
    • Free Bookish Calendars
  • Shop
Have an existing account? Sign In
Follow US
© Sevenov. All Rights Reserved.
Sevenov > Blog > Book Quotes > 34 Best Shirley Quotes
Book Quotes

34 Best Shirley Quotes

Sevenov
Last updated: January 31, 2024 2:27 am
Sevenov Published August 1, 2022
Share
4 Min Read
SHARE
Contents
Shirley Quotes by Charlotte Brontë You Might Be Interested…
Shirley Quotes by Charlotte Brontë

34 Best Shirley Quotes

Shirley by Charlotte Brontë (also the author of Jane Eyre) is a novel about two women, Caroline Helstone and Shirley Keeldar. It is set in Yorkshire during the industrial revolution when the social and economic landscape rapidly changed. The novel explores themes of class conflict, gender roles, love and marriage, and the struggles faced by women in a patriarchal society.

The character of Shirley Keeldar is fascinating as she defies expectations for a woman of her time. She is independent and outspoken, running her own business at a young age and taking an interest in politics. By contrast, Caroline Helstone embodies the traditional female role of caretaker and nurturer. However, as the two women become friends, they learn from each other and challenge their beliefs about being a woman in their society.

Here are some of the best Shirley quotes by Charlotte Brontë:

Shirley Quotes by Charlotte Brontë 

1

Alas, Experience! No other mentor has so wasted and frozen a face as yours, none wears a robe so black, none bears a rod so heavy, none with hand so inexorable draws the novice so sternly to his task, and forces him with authority so resistless to its acquirement.

2

At heart, he could not abide sense in women: he liked to see them as silly, as light-headed, as vain, as open to ridicule as possible; because they were then in reality what he held them to be, and wished them to be,–inferior: toys to play with, to amuse a vacant hour and to be thrown away.

3

Better to try all things and find all empty, than to try nothing and leave your life a blank.

4

But when people are long indifferent to us, we grow indifferent to their indifference.

5

Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within as on the state of things without and around us.

6

Existence never was originally meant to be that useless, blank, pale, slow-trailing thing it often becomes to many, and is becoming to me, among the rest.

7

. . . for, however old, plain, humble, desolate, afflicted we may be, so long as our hearts preserve the feeblest spark of life, they preserve also, shivering near that pale ember, a starved, ghostly longing for appreciation and affection.

8

God surely did not create us, and cause us to live, with the sole end of wishing always to die. I believe, in my heart, we were intended to prize life and enjoy it, so long as we retain it.

9

Gratitude is a divine emotion: it fills the heart, but not to bursting: it warms it, but not to fever. I like to taste leisurely of bliss: devoured in haste, I do not know its flavour.

10

Having a large world of his own in his own head and heart, he tolerated confinement to a small, still corner of the real world very patiently.

11

He uttered words with which this page shall never be polluted.

12

Her book has perhaps been a good one; it has refreshed, refilled, rewarmed her heart; it has set her brain astir, furnished her mind with pictures.

13

His mind has the clearness of the deep sea, the patience of its rocks, the force of its billows.

14

I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience shall dispose of my hand — they only. Know this at last.

15

I am not romantic. I am stripped of romance as bare as the white tenters in that field are of cloth.

16

I will bestir myself,’ was her resolution, ‘and try to be wise if I cannot be good.

17

I’ll borrow of imagination what reality will not give me.

18

If men could see us as we really are, they would be a little amazed; but the cleverest, the acutest men are often under an illusion about women: they do not read them in a true light: they misapprehend them, both for good and evil: their good woman is a queer thing, half doll, half angel; their bad woman almost always a fiend.

19

It was not her heart so much as her temper that was wrong.

20

Love can excuse anything except meanness; but meanness kills love, cripples even natural affection; without esteem true love cannot exist.

21

Love is real—the most real, the most lasting, the sweetest and yet the bitterest thing we know.

22

No man—no woman—is always strong, always able to bear up against the unjust opinion, the vilifying word. Calumny, even from the mouth of a fool, will sometimes cut into unguarded feelings.

23

Once I only saw her beauty, now I feel it.

24

Our power of being happy lies a good deal in ourselves, I believe.

25

Something real, cool and solid lies before you; something unromantic as Monday morning, when all who have work wake with the consciousness that they must rise and betake themselves thereto.

26

Strange that grief should now almost choke me, because another human being’s eye has failed to greet mine.

27

Suspense is irksome, disappointment bitter.

28

The wings of action and ambition could not long lie folded.

29

Then the curtain rises, and you will see the girl to whom I am going to give all my life, to whom I have given everything that is good in me.

30

. . . they would neither hate nor envy us if they did not deem us so much happier than themselves.

31

You do not know how the people of this country bear malice. It is the boast of some of them that they can keep a stone in their pocket seven years, turn it at the end of that time, keep it seven years longer, and hurl it and hit their mark at last.

32

Whether truth–be it religious or moral truth–speak eloquently and in well-chosen language or not, its voice should be heard with reverence.

33

You had no right to be born; for you make no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person’s strength.

34

You may search my countenance, but you cannot read it.

You Might Be Interested…

Shirley by Charlotte Bronte

Read Shirley free at pagevio.com

Charlotte Brontë by Patrick Branwell Brontë

Read more about Charlotte Brontë

You Might Also Like

Best Short Stories Quotes by F. Scott Fitzgerald

35 Best Tender is the Night Quotes

43 Best The Great Gatsby Quotes

39 Best The Beautiful and Damned Quotes

37 Best This Side of Paradise Quotes

Sign Up For Sevenov Newsletter

Get the latest updates delivered straight to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
Share This Article
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Copy Link Print
Share
What do you think?
Love0
Sad0
Happy0
Sleepy0
Angry0
Dead0
Wink0
Previous Article Jane Eyre Quotes by Charlotte Brontë 63 Best Jane Eyre Quotes
Next Article Villette Quotes by Charlotte Brontë 22 Best Villette Quotes

SEVENOV

Subscribe Newsletter

Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!

Find Us on Socials

  • About
  • Contact
  • Sitemap
  • Terms Of Use 
  • Privacy Policy
© Sevenov. All Rights Reserved.
Go to mobile version
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?