This morning, freedom, currently under assault, occurred to me as a suitable theme to highlight, and I have gladly looked into the WritingRedux treasury to see what is there. 

Jane Eyre is as much about freedom as love, and this quotation resonates at the moment as we see a free people caught in a cage of war, but vivid, restless and resolute.  I saw someone describe them as ‘stubborn’ which led a friend to comment, ‘Yes, stubborn and free.’ 

I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.

See also our quote-studded celebration of this humanist masterpiece.  

Source: Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (London: Bounty Books, 2012 (1847)), p. 179

Photo credit: Marco Chilese at unsplash