Quotessence
Home / Authors / Jane Austen
Jane Austen

Jane Austen Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenJane AustenIfsLoveMansfield ParkPersuasionPrejudiceMayAnne ElliotJanePride And Prejudice PrideThinkingLiteraturePeopleHeartInspiringKnowsWorldFrederick WentworthWells

Famous Jane Austen Quotes

“I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men." "Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.”

IfsThinkingMenHas BeensBookStoriesHandsSongWrittenExampleHigherPleaseProveDegreesAdvantageInequalityPensStereotypeNormInconstancy
Author:Jane Austen
Create image

“How she might have felt had there been no Captain Wentworth in the case, was not worth enquiry; for there was a Captain Wentworth: and be the conclusion of the present suspense good or bad, her affection would be his forever. Their union, she believed, could not divide her more from other men, than their final separation.”

MenMightWould BeFeltCasesForeverUnionsFinalsAffectionSeparationConclusionSuspenseDividesCaptainsEnquiry
Book:Persuasion In Modern English
Create image

“That is what I like; that is what a young man ought to be. Whatever be his pursuits, his eagerness in them should know no moderation, and leave him no sense of fatigue.”

KnowsMenShouldYoungOughtPursuitYoung ManModerationFatigueEagernessMarianne Dashwood
Book:Jane Austen Collection: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, Love and Friendship and Other Austin Works
Create image

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of someone or other of their daughters.”

MenWantMindFirstsWellsMayLittlesFeelingsViewsKnownWifeTruth IsDaughterPrejudicePropertyFortunePossessionFixedEnteringGood FortuneSingle ManNeighbourhoodsPride And Prejudice Pride
Author:Jane Austen
Create image

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight and a half years ago. Dare not say that a man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant.”

MenYearsHeartMayHas BeensSoulFeelingsForgetHalfGoneOffersLateYears AgoWeakDareEightMy SoulBrokeToo LateAgonyUnjustPersuasionHis LoveYou AgainPierceHalf A YearResentful
Book:Persuasion: World Classics
Create image

“She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It was an union that must have been to the advantage of both: by her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved; and from his judgement, information, and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance.”

MenWorldMindHas BeensMightWishUnderstandingGreaterTalentInformationBenefitsAdvantageImportanceUnionsSuitsMannersEaseJudgementTemperDispositionMight Have BeenDarcyKnowledge Of The World
Book:Jane Austen: 8 Books in 1
Create image

“I do assure you, Sir, that I have no pretension whatever of that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere. I thank you again and again for the honour you have done me in your proposals, but to accept them is absolutely impossible. My feelings in every respect forbid it. Can I speak plainer? Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.”

MenHeartKindDoneFeelingsSpeakAcceptingImpossibleCreaturesFemalePaidRationalSincereHonourComplimentAgain And AgainElegantElegancePlagueProposalRespectableSpeak The TruthYou AgainPretensionRespectable ManHonour You
Book:Pride and Prejudice
Create image

“I read it [history] a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all — it is very tiresome: and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention.”

ThinkingMenShouldLittlesDoeWarDealsDutyKingsPagesInventionOddDullWearyPopeQuarrelsTiresomePestilenceVex
Book:Northanger abbey [followed by] Persuasion
Create image

“There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those two young men. One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it.”

MenTwoYoungPrideGoodnessPrejudiceAppearanceYoung ManDarcyMismanagement
Book:8 Books in 1: Jane Austen's Complete Novels. Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Lady Susan, and Love an
Create image

“It is indolence... Indolence and love of ease; a want of all laudable ambition, of taste for good company, or of inclination to take the trouble of being agreeable, which make men clergymen. A clergyman has nothing to do but be slovenly and selfish; read the newspaper, watch the weather, and quarrel with his wife. His curate does all the work and the business of his own life is to dine.”

MenWantLifeDoeLife IsChurchCompanyWatchesWifeTroubleTasteAmbitionAnd LoveSelfishNewspapersWeatherEaseInclinationQuarrelsIndolenceGood CompanyClergymenDine
Book:8 Books in 1: Jane Austen's Complete Novels. Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Lady Susan, and Love an
Create image

“The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance”

MenWellsHas BeensBeautifulDesireGirlSexNaturalJusticeSubjectsStupidIgnoranceAdvantageFemaleAddCharmFollyReasonableTreatmentPensPortionsBeautiful GirlTriflingEnhancementImbecility
Book:Northanger abbey
Create image

“Her companion's discourse now sunk from its hitherto animated pitch, to nothing more than a short, decisive sentence of praise or condemnation on the face of every woman they met; and Catherine, after listening and agreeing as long as she could,with all the civility and deference of the youthful female mind, fearful of hazarding an opinion of its own in opposition to that of a self-assured man, especially where the beauty of her own sex is concerned, ventured at length to vary the subject.”

MenMindLongSelfFacesSexOpinionSubjectsListeningMetsConcernedFemalePraiseSentencesOppositionLengthCompanionFearfulDiscourseAssuredCivilityVaryAnimatedCondemnationDeferenceFemale Mind
Book:The Complete Works of Jane Austen: All novels, short stories, letters and poems
Create image