|
|
| |
"To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. Fanny, in Mansfield Park, ch. 9 (1814). |
"She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older—the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. The narrator, in Persuasion; of Anne Elliot, ch. 4 (1818). |
"There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. Frank Churchill, in Emma, ch. 24 (1816).
Emma replies, "Not till the reserve ceases towards one's self; and then the attraction may be the greater." |
"Like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. The narrator, in Persuasion; of Anne Elliot, ch. 11 (1818). |
"There is something in the eloquence of the pulpit, when it is really eloquence, which is entitled to the highest praise and honour. The preacher who can touch and affect such an heterogeneous mass of hearers, on subjects limited, and long worn thread-bare in all common hands; who can say any thing new or striking, any thing that rouses the attention, without offending the taste, or wearing out the feelings of his hearers, is a man whom one could not (in his public capacity) honour enough."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. Henry Crawford in Mansfield Park, ch. 34 (1814). |
"On every formal visit a child ought to be of the party, by way of provision for discourse."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. The narrator, in Sense and Sensibility, ch. 6 (1811). |
"But Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an Englishman's constitution. His thoughts and beauties are so spread abroad that one touches them everywhere; one is intimate with him by instinct."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. Henry Crawford, in Mansfield Park, ch. 34 (1814). |
"Fortunately for those who pay their court through such foibles, a fond mother, though, in pursuit of praise for her children, the most rapacious of human beings, is likewise the most credulous; her demands are exorbitant; but she will swallow any thing."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. The narrator, in Sense and Sensibility, ch. 21 (1811). |
"An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged; no harm can be done."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. Henry Crawford, in Mansfield Park, ch. 5 (1814). |
"The gentleness, modesty, and sweetness of her character were warmly expatiated on, that sweetness which makes so essential a part of every woman's worth in the judgment of man, that though he sometimes loves where it is not, he can never believe it absent."
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British novelist. The narrator's summary of Henry Crawford's comment about Fanny Price, in Mansfield Park, ch. 30 (1814). |
| |
|
|
|
|
Jane Austen
Free
Poetry E-Book: