If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.
– Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre, Chapter 8. Helen Burns offers this advice to Jane, who is feeling alone and sorry for herself because she has been called a liar before the whole school by Mr. Brocklehurst. Jane has suffered with feelings of loneliness and inadequacy and isolation throughout her young life. Helen tries to convince her that people in the school don’t despise her or believe she is a liar, but instead pity her. She urges Jane to follow her conscience and not the crowd and she will find that she has friends.