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"One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. Elizabeth Bennet, in Pride and Prejudice, ch. 40. |
"Where youth and diffidence are united, it requires uncommon steadiness of reason to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl in the world."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. The narrator, in Northanger Abbey, ch. 7 (1818). |
"Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. Emma, ch. 22 (1816). |
""It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda;" or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties and humour are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. The narrator, in Northanger Abbey, ch. 5 (1818). |
"One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. Emma, in Emma, ch. 9 (1816). |
"I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding—joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid leaves with disgust."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. The narrator, in Northanger Abbey, ch. 5 (1818). |
"It is very unfair to judge any body's conduct, without an intimate knowledge of their situation. Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what difficulties of any individual of that family may be."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. Emma in Emma, ch. 18 (1816). |
"To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. The narrator, in Persuasion, ch. 24 (1818). |
"A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. Emma in Emma, ch. 27 (1816). |
"When any two young people take it into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance to carry their point, be they ever so poor, or ever so imprudent, or ever so little likely to be necessary to each other's comfort."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. The narrator, in Persuasion, ch. 24 (1818). |
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Jane Austen
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