Beauty is that quality which, next to money, is generally the most attractive to the worst kinds of men; and, therefore, it is likely to entail a great deal of trouble on the possessor.
Interpretation
Beauty attracts attention but can lead to complications, especially from those with questionable intentions.
Anne Bronte's quote suggests that while beauty can be a significant asset, it also attracts negative attention from individuals who may seek to exploit or take advantage of it. This dual nature of beauty highlights the potential challenges that come with it, implying that those who possess beauty may face difficulties in navigating relationships and societal expectations.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the pressures faced by attractive individuals.
I still preserve those relics of past sufferings and experience, like pillars of witness set up in travelling through the valve of life, to mark particular occurrences. The footsteps are obliterated now; the face of the country may be changed; but the pillar is still there, to remind me how all things were when it was reared.
I was sorry for her; I was amazed, disgusted at her heartless vanity; I wondered why so much beauty should be given to those who made so bad a use of it, and denied to some who would make it a benefit to both themselves and others. But, God knows best, I concluded. There are, I suppose, some men as vain, as selfish, and as heartless as she is, and, perhaps, such women may be useful to punish them.
You may think it all very fine, Mr. Huntingdon, to amuse yourself with rousing my jealousy; but take care you don't rouse my hate instead. And when you have once extinguished my love, you will find it no easy matter to kindle it again.
He is very fond of me, almost too fond. I could do with less caressing and more rationality. I should like to be less of a pet and more of a friend, if I might choose; but I won't complain of that: I am only afraid his affection loses in depth where it gains in ardour. I sometimes liken it to a fire of dry twigs and branches compared with one of solid coal, very bright and hot; but if it should burn itself out and leave nothing but ashes behind.
I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are or should be, written for both men and women to read, and I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.
Keep guard over your eyes and ears as the inlets of your heart, and over your lips as the outlets, lest they betray you in a moment of unwariness.
The future is as irrevocable as an inflexible yesterday.
Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.
You say to me 'Show me your God.' I answer you, 'Everything you see in your heart that might sadden God, remove.'
Again, the glory of one attribute is more seen in one work than in another: in some things there is more of His goodness, in other things more of His wisdom is seen, and in others more of His power. But in the work of redemption all His perfections and excellencies shine forth in their greatest glory.
There are some who maintain that trade will regulate itself, and it is not to be benefited by the encouragements or restraints of government. Such persons will imagine that there is no need of a common directing power. This is one of those wild speculative paradoxes, which have grown into credit among us, contrary to the uniform practice and sense of the most enlightened nations.
The believer in magic and miracles reflects on how to impose a law on nature--: and, in brief, the religious cult is the outcome of this reflection.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.