All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence forever.
Charlotte BronteRead
I looked, and had an acute pleasure in looking,--a precious yet poignant pleasure; pure gold, with a steely point of agony: a pleasure like what the thirst-perishing man might feel who knows the well to which he has crept is poisoned, yet stoops and drinks divine draughts nevertheless.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the complex nature of pleasure intertwined with pain and the awareness of danger in seeking it.
Charlotte Bronte's quote explores the bittersweet nature of human experience, suggesting that moments of joy can also hold elements of sorrow or risk. It illustrates the idea that even when we recognize the potential for harm or disappointment in pursuing our desires, the allure of those desires can compel us to engage with them, much like a thirsty person may drink from a poisoned well despite knowing its dangers.
Themes
PleasurePainDesireRiskHuman Experience
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on the complexity of happiness and sadness, one might quote Bronte to emphasize the duality of human emotions.
More from Charlotte Bronte
All quotes →Rochester: "I am no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut-tree in Thornfield orchard…And what right would that ruin have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with freshness?" Jane: "You are no ruin sir - no lighting-struck tree: you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because your strength offers them so safe a prop.
Charlotte BronteRead
I like to see flowers growing, but when they are gathered, they cease to please. I look on them as things rootless and perishable; their likeness to life makes me sad. I never offer flowers to those I love; I never wish to receive them from hands dear to me.
Charlotte BronteRead
Peril, loneliness, an uncertain future, are not oppressive evils, so long as the frame is healthy and the faculties are employed; so long, especially, as Liberty lends us her wings, and Hope guides us by her star.
Charlotte BronteRead
For a long time the fear of seeming singular scared me away; but by degrees, as people became accustomed to me and my habits, and to such shadows of peculiarity as were engrained in my nature - shades, certainly not striking enough to interest, and perhaps not prominent enough to offend, but born in and with me, and no more to be parted with than my identity - but slow degrees I became a frequenter of this straight narrow path.
Charlotte BronteRead
But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know?-I believe; I have faith: I am going to God.-Where is God? What is God?-My maker and yours, who will never destroy what He created. I rely implicitly on His power, and confide wholly in His goodness: I count the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to Him, reveal Him to me.
Charlotte BronteRead
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