Jane Austen was an English novelist born in Steventon, Hampshire, UK on December 16, 1775. She was known for her six major novels: Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and Pride and Prejudice. All of her books were adapted into movies, with the latter two being adapted into TV series. Pride and Prejudice movie adaptation even won BAFTA and were nominated in numerous prestigious award shows.
Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published posthumously. She began writing another novel entitled Sanditon but died before its completion. Austen’s plots often explore the dependence of women in marriage in exchange for economic security and favourable social standing.
CHECK OUT: Quotes from Aldous Huxley and J. R. R. Tolkien quotes
JANE AUSTEN QUOTES
Her humour, social commentary, realism, and biting irony earned her acclaim among critics and scholars alike and the general populace. Since she is well-liked by the masses posthumously, a lot of what she has written in her novels turned into quotes that are still being widely used and applied today.
Without further ado, here are the most impactful Jane Austen quotes. Check out this super cute Pride and Prejudice tote bag.
“Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply”
“What strange creatures brothers are!
“He is a gentleman, and I am a gentleman’s daughter. So far we are equal.”
“A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”
“Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.”
“My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.”
“It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does. And men take care that they should.”
“Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.”
“I could not be happy with a man whose taste did not in every point coincide with my own. He must enter in all my feelings; the same books, the same music must charm us both.”
“Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.”
“It is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are they the result of previous study?”
“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”
“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading. How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book. When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
“It isn’t what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.”
“Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.”
“Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion.”
“Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody not greatly in fault themselves to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest.”
“Nothing ever fatigues me, but doing what I do not like.”
“I never wish to offend, but I am so foolishly shy, that I often seem negligent, when I am only kept back by my natural awkwardness.”
“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.”
“It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy; it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.”
“When pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.”
“Without music, life would be a blank to me.”
“Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.”
“Now they were as strangers; worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted.”
“Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing; but I have never been in love; it is not my way or my nature, and I do not think I ever shall.”
“Do not give way to useless alarm; though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain.”
“A fondness for reading, properly directed, must be an education in itself.”
“Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise.”
“We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the eclat of a proverb.”
“Do not let the behaviour of others destroy your inner peace.”
“I dearly love a laugh. I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.”
“There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere.”
Jane Austen wasn’t famous when she was alive. In fact, her novels were published anonymously. Her immense success came posthumously in 1833 when her books were republished in Richard Bentley’s Standard Novels series and were sold as a set. After that, she garnered worldwide critical acclaim.
Austen’s memory and legacy live on, and one of the strongest proof of that is her family publishing conclusions to her incomplete novels. In 2000, there were already more than 100 printed adaptations. She was even on the £10 note, replacing Charles Darwin.
SAVE THESE JANE AUSTEN QUOTES ON PINTEREST:
