Jane Austen - Quodid

About

Jane Austen ( OST-in, AW-stin; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English writer known primarily for her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment on the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century.

from Wikipedia

Quotes from Jane Austen

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?

—Jane Austen

But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.

—Jane Austen

I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man.

—Jane Austen

She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.

—Jane Austen

Here and there, human nature may be great in times of trial; but generally speaking, it is its weakness and not its strength that appears in a sick chamber: it is selfishness and impatience rather than generosity and fortitude, that one hears of. There is so little real friendship in the world! and unfortunately, there are so many who forget to think seriously till it is almost too late.

—Jane Austen

The enthusiasm of a woman's love is even beyond the biographer's.

—Jane Austen

The only time I ever really suffered in body or mind, the only time that I ever fancied myself unwell, or had any ideas of danger, was the winter that I passed by myself. As long as we could be together, nothing ever ailed me, and I never met with the smallest inconvenience.

—Jane Austen

A persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness as a very resolute character.

—Jane Austen

I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures.

—Jane Austen

To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.

—Jane Austen

How could it be? She watched, observed, reflected, and finally determined that this was not a case of fortitude or of resignation only. A submissive spirit might be patient, a strong understanding would supply resolution, but here was something more; here was that elasticity of mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of herself, which was from nature alone. It was the choicest gift of Heaven.

—Jane Austen

We certainly do not forget you as soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us. You are forced on exertion. You have always a profession, pursuits, business of some sort or other, to take you back into the world immediately, and continual occupation and change soon weaken impressions. All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one; you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.

—Jane Austen

Everybody has their taste in noises as well as in other matters; and sounds are quite innoxious, or most distressing, by their sort rather than their quantity.

—Jane Austen

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 ultimate comfort.

—Jane Austen

To be claimed as a good, though in an improper style, is at least better than being rejected as no good at all.

—Jane Austen

Books

Jane Austen has the following books quoted on Quodid:

Pride and Prejudice