Jane Austen: Trending quotes (page 22)

“Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths. I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it, but fear I must.”

Jane Austen

Letter to Anna (1814-09-28) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

People , Fear , Business , Help

“I give you joy of our new nephew, and hope if he ever comes to be hanged it will not be till we are too old to care about it.”

Jane Austen

Letter to Cassandra (1811-04-25) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Hope , Joy

“I am gratified by her having pleasure in what I write, but I wish the knowledge of my being exposed to her discerning criticism may not hurt my style, by inducing too great a solicitude. I begin already to weigh my words and sentences more than I did, and am looking about for a sentiment, an illustration, or a metaphor in every corner of the room. Could my ideas flow as fast as the rain in the store-closet it would be charming.”

Jane Austen

Letter (1809-01-24) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Pleasure , Idea , Knowledge , Hurt

“It was, perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Persuasion (1817)
Works, Persuasion

“It would have amused you to see our progress. We went up by Sion Hill, and returned across the fields. In climbing a hill Mrs. Chamberlayne is very capital; I could with difficulty keep pace with her, yet would not flinch for the world. On plain ground I was quite her equal. And so we posted away under a fine hot sun, she without any parasol or any shade to her hat, stopping for nothing, and crossing the churchyard at Weston with as much expedition as if we were afraid of being buried alive.”

Jane Austen

Letter to Cassandra (1801-05-21) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

World , Sun

“I would recommend to her and Mr. D. the simple regimen of separate rooms.”

Jane Austen

Letter (1817-02-20) on Mrs. Deedes having an eighteenth child [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

“You will have a great deal of unreserved discourse with Mrs. K., I dare say, upon this subject, as well as upon many other of our family matters. Abuse everybody but me.”

Jane Austen

Letter to Cassandra (1807-01-07) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Family

“I am afraid", replied Elinor, "that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.”

Jane Austen book Sense and Sensibility

Sense and Sensibility (1811)
Works, Sense and Sensibility

“Here I am once more in this scene of dissipation and vice, and I begin already to find my morals corrupted.”

Jane Austen

Letter (August 1796) on arriving in London [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

“Let me know when you begin the new tea, and the new white wine. My present elegancies have not yet made me indifferent to such matters. I am still a cat if I see a mouse.”

Jane Austen

Letter to Cassandra (1813-09-23) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Cats , Wine , Tea , Indifference

“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 book Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park (1814)
Works, Mansfield Park

Feeling

“I wish I could finish stories as fast as you can. I am much obliged to you for the sight of Olivia, and think you have done for her very well; but the good-for-nothing father, who was the real author of all her faults and sufferings, should not escape unpunished. I hope he hung himself, or took the surname of Bone or underwent some direful penance or other.”

Jane Austen

Letter to niece Caroline (1814-12-06) regarding a story Caroline sent her [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Hope , Thinking , Suffering

“The Webbs are really gone! When I saw the waggons at the door, and thought of all the trouble they must have in moving, I began to reproach myself for not having liked them better, but since the waggons have disappeared my conscience has been closed again, and I am excessively glad they are gone.”

Jane Austen

Letter to Anna (1814-09-28) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

“What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited sketches, full of variety and glow? How could I possibly join them on to the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labour?”

Jane Austen

Letter to J. Edward Austen (1816-12-16) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Strong

“I cannot help hoping that many will feel themselves obliged to buy it. I shall not mind imagining it a disagreeable duty to them, so as they do it.”

Jane Austen

Letter (1813-11-06) on the reprint of Sense and Sensibility [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Hope , Feeling , Imagination , Help

“Next week I shall begin my operations on my hat, on which you know my principal hopes of happiness depend.”

Jane Austen

Letter (1798-10-27) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Hope , Dependency , Happiness

“The General has got the gout, and Mrs. Maitland the jaundice. Miss Debary, Susan, and Sally, all in black, but without any stature, made their appearance, and I was as civil to them as their bad breath would allow me.”

Jane Austen

Letter (1800-11-20) on people she met at a ball [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Appearance

“I give you joy of having left Winchester. Now you may own how miserable you were there; now it will gradually all come out, your crimes and your miseries — how often you went up by the Mail to London and threw away fifty guineas at a tavern, and how often you were on the point of hanging yourself, restrained only, as some ill-natured aspersion upon poor old Winton has it, by the want of a tree within some miles of the city.”

Jane Austen

Letter to J. Edward Austen (1816-12-16) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Nature , Tree , Joy

“I am very much obliged to my dear little George for his message - for his love at least; his duty, I suppose, was only in consequence of some hint of my favourable intentions towards him from his father or mother. I am sincerely rejoiced, however, that I ever was born, since it has been the means of procuring him a dish of tea.”

Jane Austen

Letter to Cassandra (1798-12-18) about her nephew George [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Love , Tea , Sincerity

“It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Northanger Abbey (1817)
Works, Northanger Abbey

Feeling , Understanding , Heart