Emily Brontë (1818-1848), known by her pseudonym Ellis Bell, was a renowned English novelist and poet, most famous for her singular novel, “Wuthering Heights” (1847).
This intensely imaginative work, which conveyed a story of passion and hatred set on the Yorkshire moors, set her apart from her sisters, Charlotte and Anne, despite limited biographical information about her life.
Brontë’s upbringing in the moorland rectory, her brief stints in school and teaching and her deep homesickness for the moors shaped her writings.
In 1845, Emily’s poetry was discovered by her sister Charlotte, leading to the joint publication of a volume of verse by the three sisters.
However, it was Emily’s work that was recognized for its true poetic genius.
Although “Wuthering Heights” initially faced hostile criticism for its perceived savagery and rough construction, it later became recognized as one of the greatest novels in the English language.
Related: E. M. Forster Quotes from the Famous English Novelist
Emily’s declining health following its publication resulted in her untimely death from tuberculosis in December 1848.
Here is a curated collection of quotes from Emily Bronte for you.
Best Emily Bronte Quotes
Shall Earth no more inspire thee, Thou lonely dreamer now? ~ Emily Bronte.
I have to remind myself to breathe – almost to remind my heart to beat! ~ Emily Bronte.
Existence, after losing her, would be hell. ~ Emily Bronte.
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. ~ Emily Bronte.
No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere… ~ Emily Bronte.
You must forgive me, for I struggled only for you. ~ Emily Bronte.
There is no room for Death, Nor atom that his might could render void: Thou – Thou art Being and Breath, And what Thou art may never be destroyed. ~ Emily Bronte.
If you ever looked at me once with what I know is in you, I would be your slave. ~ Emily Bronte.
No coward soul is mine. ~ Emily Brontë.
A heaven so clear, an earth so calm, So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air; And, deepening still the dreamlike charm, Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere. ~ Emily Bronte.
Oh, for the time when I shall sleep without identity. ~ Emily Bronte.
If I had caused the cloud, it was my duty to make an effort to dispel it. ~ Emily Bronte.
Famous Emily Bronte Quotes
Wish and learn to smooth away the surly wrinkles, to raise your lids frankly, and change the fiends to confident, innocent angels, suspecting and doubting nothing, and always seeing friends where they are not sure of foes. ~ Emily Bronte.
I’ll be as dirty as I please, and I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty! ~ Emily Bronte.
He might as well plant an oak in a flowerpot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigor in the soil of his shallow cares! ~ Emily Bronte.
Though earth and man were gone, And suns and universes ceased to be, And Thou wert left alone, Every existence would exist in Thee. ~ Emily Bronte.
Terror made me cruel; and finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes… ~ Emily Bronte.
I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing. ~ Emily Bronte.
Hush, my darling! Hush, hush, Catherine! I’ll stay. If he shot me so, I’d expire with a blessing on my lips. ~ Emily Bronte.
Great Emily Bronte Quotes
My love for Heathchiff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. ~ Emily Bronte.
Joseph is the wearisomest and self-righteous Pharisee who ever ransacked the Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses on his neighbor. ~ Emily Bronte.
He is more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made out of, his and mine are the same. ~ Emily Bronte.
You have left me so long to struggle against death, alone, that I feel and see only death! I feel like death! ~ Emily Bronte.
We must be for ourselves in the long run; the mild and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering. ~ Emily Bronte.
I cannot love thee; thou ’rt worse than thy brother. Go, say thy prayers, child, and ask God’s pardon. I doubt thy mother and I must rue that we ever reared thee! ~ Emily Bronte.
Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves. ~ Emily Bronte.
Top Emily Bronte Quotes
I will walk where my own nature would be leading. ~ Emily Bronte.
Be with me always – take any form – drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I can not live without my life! I can not live without my soul! ~ Emily Bronte.
Time brought resignation and a melancholy sweeter than common joy. ~ Emily Bronte.
Heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy. ~ Emily Bronte.
I have not broken your heart – you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. ~ Emily Bronte.
Kiss me again, but don’t let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer – but yours! How can I? ~ Emily Bronte.
Still let my tyrants know, I am not doomed to wear Year after year in gloom, and desolate despair; A messenger of Hope comes every night to me, And offers for short life, eternal liberty. ~ Emily Bronte.
Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. ~ Emily Bronte.
May you not rest, as long as I am living. You said I killed you – haunt me, then. ~ Emily Bronte.
Wise Emily Bronte Quotes
If raindrops were kisses, I’d send you showers. If hugs were seas, I’d send you oceans. And if love was a person I’d send you me! Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. ~ Emily Bronte.
Yes, as my swift days near their goal, ’tis all that I implore: In life and death a chainless soul, with courage to endure. ~ Emily Bronte.
A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly. ~ Emily Bronte.
The entire world is a collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her. ~ Emily Bronte.
It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn. ~ Emily Bronte.
Thoughts are tyrants that return again and again to torment us. ~ Emily Bronte.
The winter wind is loud and wild, Come close to me, my darling child; Forsake thy books, and mate less play; And, while the night is gathering grey, We’ll talk its pensive hours away. ~ Emily Bronte.
I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth. ~ Emily Bronte.
I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after. ~ Emily Bronte.
Powerful Emily Bronte Quotes
You know that I could as soon forget you as my existence! ~ Emily Bronte.
But you might as well bid a man struggling in the water, rest within arm’s length of the shore! I must reach it first, and then I’ll rest. ~ Emily Bronte.
You know, I’ve had a bitter, hard life since I last heard your voice and if I’ve survived it’s all because of you. ~ Emily Bronte.
I pray every night that I may live after him; because I would rather be miserable than that he should be – that proves I love him better than myself. ~ Emily Bronte.
In secret pleasure – secret tears This changeful life has slipped away. ~ Emily Bronte.
I have fled my country and gone to the heather. ~ Emily Bronte.
Any relic of the dead is precious, if they were valued living. ~ Emily Bronte.
Your presence is a moral poison that would contaminate the most virtuous. ~ Emily Bronte.
You’re hard to please: so many friends and so few cares, and can’t make yourself content. ~ Emily Bronte.
Thought-Provoking Emily Bronte Quotes
He’ll love and hate equally under cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to loved or hated again. ~ Emily Bronte.
Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree. ~ Emily Bronte.
Last night, I was on the threshold of hell. To-day, I am within sight of my heaven. I have my eyes on it: hardly three feet to sever me! ~ Emily Bronte.
And, even yet, I dare not let it languish, Dare not indulge in memory’s rapturous pain; Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish, How could I seek the empty world again? ~ Emily Bronte.
Worthless as wither’d weeds. ~ Emily Bronte.
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire. ~ Emily Bronte.
I have dreamed in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind. ~ Emily Bronte.
Honest people don’t hide their deeds. ~ Emily Brontë.
I love the ground under his feet, and the air over his head, and everything he touches and every word he says. I love all his looks, and all his actions and him entirely and all together. ~ Emily Bronte.
I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul! ~ Emily Bronte.
Popular Emily Bronte Quotes
The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him… ~ Emily Brontë.
Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee, While the world’s tide is bearing me along; Sterner desires and darker hopes beset me, Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong. ~ Emily Bronte.
The night is darkening round me, The wild winds coldly blow; But a tyrant spell has bound me, And I cannot, cannot go. ~ Emily Bronte.
If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results. ~ Emily Bronte.
You have been compelled to cultivate your reflective faculties for want of occasions for frittering away your life on silly trifles. ~ Emily Bronte.
I have no pity! I have no pity! The more worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails! It is a moral teething, and I grind with greater energy, in proportion to the increase of pain. ~ Emily Bronte.
That is how I’m loved! Well, never mind. That is not my Heathcliff. I shall love mine yet; and take him with me: he’s in my soul. ~ Emily Bronte.
Alas, for the effects of bad tea and bad temper! ~ Emily Bronte.
He turned, as he spoke, a peculiar look in her direction, a look of hatred unless he has a most perverse set of facial muscles that will not, like those of other people, interpret the language of his soul. ~ Emily Bronte.
If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn’t love as much in eighty years as I could in a day. ~ Emily Bronte.
Love is like the wild rose-briar; Friendship like the holly-tree. The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms, but which will bloom most constantly? ~ Emily Bronte.
Profound Emily Bronte Quotes
You fight against that devil for love as long as you may; when the time comes, not all the angels in heaven shall save him. ~ Emily Bronte.
I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death; and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen, and since he has destroyed mine, I have no power to feel for him. ~ Emily Bronte.
I take so little interest in my daily life, that I hardly remember to eat and drink. ~ Emily Bronte.
If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger. ~ Emily Bronte.
It is astonishing how sociable I feel myself compared with him. ~ Emily Bronte.
I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading: It vexes me to choose another guide: Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding; Where the wild wind blows on the mountain-side. ~ Emily Bronte.
And from the midst of cheerless gloom I passed to bright unclouded day. ~ Emily Bronte.
Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves. But if you be afraid of your touchiness, you must ask pardon, mind, when she comes in. ~ Emily Bronte.
The old church tower and garden wall Are black with autumn rain And dreary winds foreboding call The darkness down again. ~ Emily Bronte.
I hate him for himself, but despise him for the memories he revives. ~ Emily Bronte.
Terror made me cruel. ~ Emily Bronte.
She burned too bright for this world. ~ Emily Brontë.
I cannot express it: but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is, or should be, an existence of yours beyond you. ~ Emily Bronte.
By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness; how undeserved, I alone can appreciate. ~ Emily Bronte.
It is strange people should be so greedy, when they are alone in the world. ~ Emily Bronte.
Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies. ~ Emily Bronte.
It is for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive. ~ Emily Bronte.
They forgot everything the minute they were together again. ~ Emily Bronte.
I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself. ~ Emily Bronte.
He shall never know I love him: and that, not because he’s handsome, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made out of, his and mine are the same. ~ Emily Bronte.
What kind of living will it be when you – Oh, God! Would you like to live with your soul in the grave? ~ Emily Bronte.
So these were the 100 top Emily Bronte quotes and sayings.
If you like these quotes and sayings, then you can also read my other posts on Roy L. Smith quotes and Bayard Rustin quotes.
