I say, if you hate cruelty, remember that nothing is so cruel in its consequences as the toleration of heresy!

I could forgive you even your cruelty if it were not for your calm.

I'm not unfaithful, darling. I've plenty of faults but I'm very faithful. You'll be sick of me I'll be so faithful.

If I must be faithful to someone or something, I have, first of all, have to be faithful to myself.

If I wasn't hard, I wouldn't be alive.
If I couldn't ever be gentle, I wouldn't deserve to be alive.

But, Jocelyn, if I really were all those things [good, kind, talented, hard working, open to change, and adorable]... ...I would die.'

I wasn't sure what I meant by this, but it suddenly struck me as the truth.

'Because you'd rather die than feel anger at your mother for not giving you what you needed?

"It would not be wicked to love me."
"It would to obey you."

What an ingrate I would be to curse the fate that concludes the blessed life I’ve led.

Hush, my darling! Hush, hush, Catherine! I'll stay. If he shot me so, I'd expire with a blessing on my lips.

The assertion that you are in falsehood and I am in truth ist the most cruel thing one man can say to another

From the house of unbelief
to true religion
is a single breath;
From the world of doubt
to certainty
is a single breath;
Enjoy this precious single breath,
for the harvest
of our whole lives
is that same one breath.

I will bear any thing you can inflict upon me with Patience, even to the laying down of my Life, to shew my Obedience to you in other Cases; but I cannot be patient, I cannot be passive, when my Virtue is at Stake!

Hope offered, then denied. A particular cruelty.

You teach me now how cruel you've been - cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they'll blight you - they'll damn you. You loved me - what right had you to leave me? What right - answer me - for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will did it. I have no broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you - Oh, God! would you like to lie with your soul in the grave?