“Now I must give one smirk and then we may be rational again”

—  Jane Austen , book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Now I must give one smirk and then we may be rational again" by Jane Austen?
Jane Austen photo
Jane Austen 477
English novelist 1775–1817

Related quotes

“The rational man may talk a good game about suicide, but reason must give way to obsession and finally squalor before he can actually do it.”

Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) English-American novelist and essayist

"A. Alvarez: The Savage God" (1972), p. 69
The Good Word & Other Words (1978)

Learned Hand photo

“If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: Thou shalt not ration justice.”

Learned Hand (1872–1961) American legal scholar, Court of Appeals judge

To The New York Legal Aid Society (16 February 1951).
Extra-judicial writings

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield photo

“We must not draw general conclusions from certain particular principles, though, in the main, true ones. We must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will therefore always act rationally; or, because he has such or such a predominant passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in the pursuit of it. No. We are complicated machines: and though we have one main-spring, that gives motion to the whole, we have an infinity of little wheels, which, in their turns, retard, precipitate, and sometimes stop that motion.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

19 December 1749
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)

Thomas Paine photo

“The one is a half-rational of whom there is some hope, the other a visionary to whom we must be charitable.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1790s, Discourse to the Theophilanthropists (1798)
Context: The atheist who affects to reason, and the fanatic who rejects reason, plunge themselves alike into inextricable difficulties. The one perverts the sublime and enlightening study of natural philosophy into a deformity of absurdities by not reasoning to the end. The other loses himself in the obscurity of metaphysical theories, and dishonours the Creator, by treating the study of his works with contempt. The one is a half-rational of whom there is some hope, the other a visionary to whom we must be charitable.

“One must be rational about such matters and being rational need not mean being cold.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 1: Robert

Halldór Laxness photo

“It is justice, not love, that will one day give life to the children of the future. The battle for justice is the one thing which gives human life rational meaning.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Örn Úlfar
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Three: The House of the Poet

John Nash photo

“At the present time I seem to be thinking rationally again in the style that is characteristic of scientists.”

John Nash (1928–2015) American mathematician and Nobel Prize laureate

Autobiographical essay (1994)
Context: At the present time I seem to be thinking rationally again in the style that is characteristic of scientists. However this is not entirely a matter of joy as if someone returned from physical disability to good physical health. One aspect of this is that rationality of thought imposes a limit on a person's concept of his relation to the cosmos.

U.G. Krishnamurti photo

“I am not anti-rational, just unrational. You may infer a rational meaning in what I say or do, but it is your doing, not mine.”

U.G. Krishnamurti (1918–2007) Indian philosopher

Source: No Way Out (2002), Ch. 1: The Unrational Philosophy of U.G. Krishnamurti

Stephen Colbert photo

“I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the "No Fact Zone".”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

White House Correspondents' Association Dinner (2006)
Context: I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the "No Fact Zone". Fox News, I hold a copyright on that term.

Erica Jong photo

“I only know that in our choice of friends and lovers and teachers who will change our lives, we are guided by forces which have nothing to do with the rationalizations we give.”

Erica Jong (1942) Novelist, poet, memoirist, critic

How to Save Your Own Life (1977)

Related topics