Which iconic female character says: "I would always rather be happy than dignified"?

This quote belongs to Chapter 34 of the novel “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë (1816 - 1855), the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature.

It is the thought of Jane Eyre herself after her argument with St. John. He made her a proposal, but not because of love. He just needed a faithful helper in his missionary work. Jane is not willing to marry him without feeling love. After her obvious refusal he treated her coldly, thus torturing her with ignorance that replaced former warmth. When St. John’s sister Diana tells Jane that he is waiting for her in the garden, Jane, thinking that she is not above apologizing yet again, runs after him, thinking, "I would always rather be happy than dignified." He's her friend, and she wants to repair that friendship.

That's Jane Eyre, putting matters of the heart before matters of etiquette. She wants to be reconciled with him even if it means asking for forgiveness while not feeling guilty.

"Jane Eyre" revolutionised prose fiction by being the first to focus on its protagonist's moral and spiritual development through an intimate first-person narrative, where actions and events are coloured by a psychological intensity. Charlotte Brontë has been called the "first historian of the private consciousness", and the literary ancestor of writers like Proust and Joyce.