I would always rather be happy than dignified.
Jane says this about herself after a quarrel with her cousin St John Rivers, whom she then runs after to make peace. The novel was published in October 1847 under the name Currer Bell.
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.
Reader, I married him.
I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp, / The Man’s the gowd for a’ that.