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
Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste.
Interpretation
True happiness is experienced fully when shared with others. Without sharing, happiness loses its essence.
In this quote, Charlotte Bronte emphasizes the idea that happiness is not just a personal experience but is enriched through sharing it with others. When happiness is kept to oneself, it lacks flavor and depth, making it feel less significant. Sharing our joy with friends and loved ones enhances the experience, making it more meaningful and fulfilling.
In practice
During a toast at a wedding, to emphasize the joy of love and shared happiness.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You might not make it to the top, but if you are doing what you love, there is much more happiness there than being rich or famous.
Real happiness is not dependent on external things. The pond is fed from within. The kind of happiness that stays with you is the happiness that springs from inward thoughts and emotions. You must cultivate your mind if you wish to achieve enduring happiness.
A happy memory is perhaps on this earth truer than happiness itself.
That man lives happy and in command of himself, who from day to day can say I have lived. Whether clouds obscure, or the sun illumines the following day, that which is past is beyond recall.
I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.
Joy is that kind of happiness that does not depend on what happens.
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