Jane Austen: Trending quotes

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Jane Austen: 954 quotes67 likes

“I cannot anyhow continue to find people agreeable; I respect Mrs. Chamberlayne for doing her hair well, but cannot feel a more tender sentiment. Miss Langley is like any other short girl, with a broad nose and wide mouth, fashionable dress and exposed bosom. Adm. Stanhope is a gentleman-like man, but then his legs are too short and his tail too long.”

Jane Austen

Letter to Cassandra (1801-05-12) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

“I can recollect nothing more to say at present; perhaps breakfast may assist my ideas. I was deceived — my breakfast supplied only two ideas — that the rolls were good and the butter bad.”

Jane Austen

Letter (1799-06-19) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

“I could no more write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No, I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.”

Jane Austen

Letter to Mr. Clarke (1816-04-01) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

“A very short trial convinced her that a curricle was the prettiest equipage in the world”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Northanger Abbey (1817)
Works, Northanger Abbey

“In Paragon we met Mrs. Foley and Mrs. Dowdeswell with her yellow shawl airing out, and at the bottom of Kingsdown Hill we met a gentleman in a buggy, who, on minute examination, turned out to be Dr. Hall — and Dr. Hall in such very deep mourning that either his mother, his wife, or himself must be dead.”

Jane Austen

Letter (1799-06-17) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

“There are such beings in the world — perhaps one in a thousand — as the creature you and I should think perfection; where grace and spirit are united to worth, where the manners are equal to the heart and understanding; but such a person may not come in your way, or, if he does, he may not be the eldest son of a man of fortune, the near relation of your particular friend, and belonging to your own county.”

Jane Austen

Letter to Fanny Knight (1814-11-18) on finding love [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

“Devereux Forester's being ruined by his vanity is extremely good, but I wish you would not let him plunge into a "vortex of dissipation." I do not object to the thing, but I cannot bear the expression; it is such thorough novel slang, and so old that I daresay Adam met with it in the first novel he opened.”

Jane Austen

Letter to niece Anna (1814-09-28) regarding a character in Anna's novel [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

“You know how interesting the purchase of a sponge-cake is to me.”

Jane Austen

Letter to Cassandra (1808-06-15) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

“There were several Battles between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians, in which the former (as they ought) usually won.”

Jane Austen

'The History of England (1791)
Works, History of England

“I believe I drank too much wine last night at Hurstbourne; I know not how else to account for the shaking of my hand today. You will kindly make allowance therefore for any indistinctness of writing, by attributing it to this venial error.”

Jane Austen

Letter to Cassandra (1800-11-20) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

“Mrs. B. and two young women were of the same party, except when Mrs. B. thought herself obliged to leave them to run round the room after her drunken husband. His avoidance, and her pursuit, with the probable intoxication of both, was an amusing scene.”

Jane Austen

Letter (1801-05-12) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

“I had a very pleasant evening, however, though you will probably find out that there was no particular reason for it; but I do not think it worth while to wait for enjoyment until there is some real opportunity for it.”

Jane Austen

Letter (1799-01-21) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

“She [Mary I] married Philip King of Spain, who in her sister's reign, was famous for building Armadas.”

Jane Austen

'The History of England (1791)
Works, History of England

“Of various admirals I could tell you a great deal: of them and their flags, and the gradation of their pay, and their bickerings and jealousies. But, in general, I can assure you that they are all passed over, and all very ill used. Certainly, my home at my uncle’s brought me acquainted with a circle of admirals. Of Rears and Vices I saw enough. Now do not be suspecting me of a pun, I entreat.”

Jane Austen book Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park (1814)
Works, Mansfield Park

“I cannot help thinking that it is more natural to have flowers grow out of the head than fruit.”

Jane Austen

Letter to Cassandra (1799-06-11) on decorating her hat [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

“My head-dress was a bugle-band like the border to my gown, and a flower of Mrs Tilson’s. I depended upon hearing something of the evening from Mr. W. K., and am very well satisfied with his notice of me — "A pleasing looking young woman" — that must do; one cannot pretend to anything better now; thankful to have it continued a few years longer!”

Jane Austen

Letter (1811-04-30) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

“I speak what appears to me the general opinion; and where an opinion is general, it is usually correct.”

Jane Austen book Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park (1814)
Works, Mansfield Park

“She was of course only too good for him; but as nobody minds having what is too good for them, he was very steadily earnest in the pursuit of the blessing…”

Jane Austen book Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park (1814)
Works, Mansfield Park

“It was in this reign that Joan of Arc reigned and made such a row among the English.”

Jane Austen

'The History of England (1791)
Works, History of England

“Jane Austen is thus a mistress of much deeper emotion than appears upon the surface. She stimulates us to supply what is not there. What she offers is, apparently, a trifle, yet is composed of something that expands in the reader’s mind and endows with the most enduring form of life scenes which are outwardly trivial. Always the stress is laid upon character. How, we are made to wonder, will Emma behave when Lord Osborne and Tom Musgrave make their call at five minutes before three, just as Mary is bringing in the tray and the knife-case? It is an extremely awkward situation. The young men are accustomed to much greater refinement. Emma may prove herself ill-bred, vulgar, a nonentity. The turns and twists of the dialogue keep us on the tenterhooks of suspense. Our attention is half upon the present moment, half upon the future. And when, in the end, Emma behaves in such a way as to vindicate our highest hopes of her, we are moved as if we had been made witnesses of a matter of the highest importance. Here, indeed, in this unfinished and in the main inferior story, are all the elements of Jane Austen’s greatness. It has the permanent quality of literature. Think away the surface animation, the likeness to life, and there remains, to provide a deeper pleasure, an exquisite discrimination of human values.”

Jane Austen

Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader (1925)