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    "name": "Leafy Quotes",
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    "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com"
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  "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.",
  "title": "Villette",
  "slug": "villette",
  "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charlotte-bronte/villette",
  "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charlotte-bronte/villette.json",
  "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charlotte-bronte/villette.md",
  "author": {
    "name": "Charlotte Brontë",
    "slug": "charlotte-bronte",
    "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charlotte-bronte"
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  "cover": "https://quivercdn.com/covers/vintage/charlotte-bronte/villette_978-03-0745-556-7.jpg",
  "quotes_count": 7,
  "quotes": [
    {
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      "slug": "i-told-him",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charlotte-bronte/villette/i-told-him",
      "text": "I told him how we kept fewer forms between us and God; retaining, indeed, no more than, perhaps, the nature of mankind in the mass rendered necessary for due observance. I told him I could not look on flowers and tinsel, on wax- lights and embroidery, at such times and under such circumstances as should be devoted to lifting the secret vision to Him whose home is Infinity, and His being — Eternity. That when I thought of sin and sorrow, of earthly corruption, mortal depravity, weighty temporal woe — I could not care for chanting priests or mumming officials; that when the pains of existence and the terrors of dissolution pressed before me — when the mighty hope and measureless doubt of the future arose in view — _then_, even the scientific strain, or the prayer in a language learned and dead, harassed: with hindrance a heart which only longed to cry — \"God be merciful to me, a sinner!\"",
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      "topics": [
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          "name": "religion",
          "slug": "religion",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion"
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        {
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          "slug": "prayer",
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      "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:52:42"
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    {
      "id": "dca2035d-e1c6-43da-803e-e25ee4d3f46e",
      "slug": "there-is-in-lovers",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charlotte-bronte/villette/there-is-in-lovers",
      "text": "There is, in lovers, a certain infatuation of egotism; they will have a witness of their happiness, cost that witness what it may.",
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      "chapter": null,
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      "topics": [
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          "name": "selfishness",
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        {
          "name": "falling in love",
          "slug": "falling-in-love",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/falling-in-love"
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      "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:52:42"
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    {
      "id": "daf08e19-5931-4b3b-90b7-2e0e933a0df2",
      "slug": "liberty-lends-us-her",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charlotte-bronte/villette/liberty-lends-us-her",
      "text": "Liberty lends us her wings and Hope guides us by her star.",
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        {
          "name": "freedom",
          "slug": "freedom",
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        {
          "name": "hope",
          "slug": "hope",
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    {
      "id": "d38d142e-313a-4bb1-94c0-31862e59b148",
      "slug": "if-there-are",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charlotte-bronte/villette/if-there-are",
      "text": "If there are words and wrongs like knives, whose deep inflicted lacerations never heal - cutting injuries and insults of serrated and poison-dripping edge - so, too, there are consolations of tone too fine for the ear not fondly and for ever to retain their echo: caressing kindnesses - loved, lingered over through a whole life, recalled with unfaded tenderness, and answering the call with undimmed shine, out of that raven cloud foreshadowing Death himself.",
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      "topics": [
        {
          "name": "kindness",
          "slug": "kindness",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/kindness"
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        {
          "name": "words",
          "slug": "words",
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    {
      "id": "c4fdbb4c-6e56-409a-a093-a975ec62ba43",
      "slug": "i-believe-in-some",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charlotte-bronte/villette/i-believe-in-some",
      "text": "I believe in some blending of hope and sunshine sweetening the worst lots. I believe that this life is not all; neither the beginning nor the end. I believe while I tremble; I trust while I weep.",
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      "character": null,
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      "topics": [
        {
          "name": "faith",
          "slug": "faith",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith"
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        {
          "name": "hope",
          "slug": "hope",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope"
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    {
      "id": "8bdb0098-754d-4421-a771-cee5b125f311",
      "slug": "i-like-to-see",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charlotte-bronte/villette/i-like-to-see",
      "text": "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.",
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          "name": "transience",
          "slug": "transience",
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        {
          "name": "flowers",
          "slug": "flowers",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/flowers"
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    {
      "id": "7d15eb2b-94e9-4bb7-865d-3c7cef043df4",
      "slug": "no-mockery-in-this",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charlotte-bronte/villette/no-mockery-in-this",
      "text": "No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise.",
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