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In the ages of equality all men are independent of each other, isolated and weak.

It tends to isolate them from each other, to concentrate every man's attention upon himself; and it lays open the soul to an inordinate love of material gratification.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god

Furthermore, Friendship seems to be the bond of Social Communities, and legislators seem to be more anxious to secure it than Justice even.

It is the monotony of his own nature that makes a man find solitude intolerable.

Ordinary people are sociable and complaisant just from the very opposite feeling;--to bear others' company is easier for them than to bear their own.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

the need of society drives the human porcupines together--only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature

The young should early be trained to bear being left alone; for it is a source of happiness and peace of mind.

The prime reason for social intercourse is mutual need; and as soon as that is satisfied, boredom drives people together once more.

Great minds are like eagles, and build their nest in some lofty solitude.

My heart is as dry as that spring sometimes proves in a thirsty August, when I revert to the space that is between us; a length of passage enough to render obsolete the phrases of our English letters before they can reach you.

Come back, before I am grown into a very old man, so as you shall hardly know me.

The partners, and the clerks, with whom I had for so many years, and for so many hours in each day of the year, been closely associated--being suddenly removed from them--they seemed as dead to me.

How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to himself! he is his own exclusive object.

To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company.

I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.

This was wealth indeed!—wealth to the heart!—a mine of pure, genial affections.

I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me—for you will not get it, any more than I shall get it of you: which I do not at all anticipate.

Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!—I have as much soul as you,—and full as much heart!

Jane, I will be your brother—my sisters will be your sisters—without stipulating for this sacrifice of your just rights.

You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity.

Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags.

If I associate not with these people,-- with mankind,-- with whom shall I associate?

And the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.