Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre places questions of autonomy, conscience, love and social power inside Jane’s first-person narrative. The novel’s declarations of independence are presented here with their dramatic setting rather than as context-free modern slogans.
Wording is checked against the Project Gutenberg public-domain edition of Jane Eyre. Each record names the chapter and preserves Jane’s original sentence boundaries.
Verified quotations
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will.”Jane Eyre, Chapter 23 · View source
“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”Jane Eyre, Chapter 27 · View source
“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.”Jane Eyre, Chapter 6 · View source
“I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do.”Jane Eyre, Chapter 19 · View source
“We were born to strive and endure—you as well as I: do so.”Jane Eyre, Chapter 27 · View source