Jane Austen is probably one of my favourite authors of all time and when I found a list compiled of many of her most famous (and infamous) quotations I just had to share it here. So for your reading pleasure I hope you enjoy reading Miss Austen’s words and sayings as much as I did.
I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
–
letter of December 24, 1798
“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.”
–
letter of January 7 1807
[To her sister Cassandra, on the birth of a son to one of their sisters-in-law:]“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.”
–
letter of April 25, 1811
[On another of their nephews, then about three years old:]“I shall think with tenderness and delight on his beautiful and smiling countenance and interesting manner, until a few years have turned him into an ungovernable, ungracious fellow.”
–
letter of October 27 1798
“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.”
–
letter of January 21 1799
“At length the day is come on which I am to flirt my last with
Tom Lefroy, and when you receive this it will be over. My tears flow at the melancholy idea.”
–
letter of January 16, 1796
[At a ball, where being introduced is a prerequisite before a gentleman can ask a lady with whom he is unacquainted to dance:]“There was one gentleman, an officer of the Cheshire, a very good-looking young man, who, I was told, wanted very much to be introduced to me, but as he did not want it quite enough to take much trouble in effecting it, we never could bring it about.”
–
letter of January 8 1799
“Next week [I] shall begin my operations on my hat, on which you know my principal hopes of happiness depend.”
–
letter of October 27 1798
[Love advice to her niece
Fanny Knight:] “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.”
–
letter of November 18, 1814
“He seems a very harmless sort of young man, nothing to like or dislike in him — goes out shooting or hunting with the two others all the morning, and plays at
whist and makes queer faces in the evening.”
–
letter of September 23, 1813
[To her niece
Anna, referring to characters in a novel that Anna was then writing:]“His having been in love with the aunt gives… an additional interest… I like the idea — a very proper compliment to an aunt! I rather imagine indeed that nieces are seldom chosen but out of compliment to some aunt or another. I daresay Ben [Anna's husband] was in love with me once, and would never have thought of you if he had not supposed me dead of a scarlet fever.”
–
letter of late 1814
“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.”
–
letter of May 17 1799
“As an inducement to subscribe, Mrs. Martin [the circulating-library proprietor] tells me that her collection is not to consist only of novels, but of every kind of literature, &c. She might have spared this pretension to our family, who are great novel-readers and not ashamed of being so; but it was necessary, I suppose, to the self-consequence of half her subscribers.”
–
letter of December 18, 1798
“He and I should not in the least agree, of course, in our ideas of novels and heroines.
Pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked”
–
letter of March 23 1817
“I could no more write a [historical] 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.”
–
letter of April 1st 1816
“I have read [Byron's] The Corsair, mended my petticoat, and have nothing else to do.”
–
letter of March 5, 1814
[On the appearance of a second printing of
Sense and Sensibility:]“Since I wrote last, my 2nd edit. has stared me in the face. [...] 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.”
–
letter of November 6th 1813
“I… do not think the worse of him for having a brain so very different from mine. … And he deserves better treatment than to be obliged to read any more of my works.”
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letter of March 23 1817
“I often wonder how you can find time for what you do, in addition to the care of the house; and how good Mrs. West could have written such books and collected so many hard works, with all her family cares, is still more a matter of astonishment! Composition seems to me impossible with a head full of joints of mutton and doses of rhubarb.”
–
letter of September 8 1816
[On arriving in London:] “Here I am once more in this scene of dissipation and vice, and I begin already to find my morals corrupted.”
–
letter of August 1796
[On visiting a fashionable ladies' boarding school in London:]“the weather…left me only a few minutes to sit with Charlotte Craven. She looks very well, and her hair is done up with an elegance to do credit to any education. Her manners are as unaffected and pleasing as ever… I was shewn upstairs into a drawing-room, where she came to me, and the appearance of the room, so totally unschool-like, amused me very much; it was full of modern elegancies, and if it had not been for some naked cupids over the mantlepiece, which must be a fine study for girls, one should never have smelt instruction.”
–
letter of May 20, 1813
“Unluckily however, I see nothing to be glad of, unless I make it a matter of Joy that Mrs. Wylmot has another son, & that Lord Lucan has taken a Mistress, both of which Events are of course joyful to the Actors.” [i.e. participants]
–
letter of February 8th 1807
“Poor woman! how can she honestly be breeding again?”
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letter of October 1 1808
[On Mrs. Deede's giving birth to another child:]“I would recommend to her and Mr. D. the simple regimen of separate rooms.”
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letter of February 20, 1817
“I believe I drank too much wine last night at Hurstbourne; I know not how else to account for the shaking of my hand to-day. You will kindly make allowance therefore for any indistinctness of writing, by attributing it to this venial error.”
–
letter of November 20 1800
[At a ball:] “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.”
–
letter of May 12 1801
“Fanny and the two little girls… revelled last night in Don Juan, whom we left in hell at half-past eleven. … The girls… still prefer Don Juan; and I must say that I have seen nobody on the stage who has been a more interesting character than that compound of cruelty and lust.”
–
letter of September 15, 1813
“You know how interesting the purchase of a sponge-cake is to me.”
–
letter of June 15, 1808
[On preparing for
the move from Steventon to Bath:] “You are very kind in planning presents for me to make, and my mother has shown me exactly the same attention; but as I do not choose to have generosity dictated to me, I shall not resolve on giving my cabinet to Anna till the first thought of it has been my own.”
–
letter of January 8 1801
“Dr. Gardiner was married yesterday to Mrs. Percy and her three daughters.”
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letter of June 11 1799
“My mother looks forward with as much certainty as you can do to our keeping two maids… We plan having a steady cook and a young, giddy housemaid, with a sedate, middle-aged man, who is to undertake the double office of husband to the former and sweetheart to the latter. No children, of course, to be allowed on either side.”
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letter of Jan 3, 1801
“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.”
–
letter of May 12, 1801
[On buying a "sprig" for her sister's hat:] “I cannot help thinking that it is more natural to have flowers grow out of the head than fruit. What do you think on that subject?”
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letter of June 11 1799
[On the Peninsular War:] “How horrible it is to have so many people killed! And what a blessing that one cares for none of them!”
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letter of May 31, 1811
“You express so little anxiety about my being murdered under Ash Park Copse by Mrs. Hulbert’s servant, that I have a great mind not to tell you whether I was or not”
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letter of January 8 1799
“Kill poor Mrs. Sclater if you like it while you are at Manydown.”
– letter of February 9 1813
“I learnt from Mrs. Tickars’s young lady, to my high amusement, that the stays [corsets] now are not made to force the bosom up at all; that was a very unbecoming, unnatural fashion.”
–
letter of September 15 1813
“You deserve a longer letter than this; but it is my unhappy fate seldom to treat people so well as they deserve.”
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letter December 24 1798
“I shall not tell you anything more of Wm. Digweed’s china, as your silence on the subject makes you unworthy of it.”
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letter of December 27, 1808
“Your silence on the subject of our ball makes me suppose your curiosity too great for words.”
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letter of January 24, 1809
“Fanny Austen’s match is quite news, and I am sorry she has behaved so ill. There is some comfort to us in her misconduct, that we have not a congratulatory letter to write.”
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letter of June 20 1808
“Miss Bigg… writes me word that Miss Blachford is married. but I have never seen it in the Paper. And one may be as well be single, if the Wedding is not to be in print.”
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letter of late 1814
[On having a little extra spending cash:] “I sent my answer… which I wrote without much effort, for I was rich, and the rich are always respectable, whatever be their style of writing.”
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letter of June 20 1808
“I find, on looking into my affairs, that instead of being very rich I am likely to be very poor… as we are to meet in Canterbury I need not have mentioned this. It is as well, however, to prepare you for the sight of a sister sunk in poverty, that it may not overcome your spirits.”
–
letter of August 24 1805
“We found only Mrs. Lance at home, and whether she boasts any offspring besides a grand pianoforte did not appear. … They will not come often, I dare say. They live in a handsome style and are rich, and she seemed to like to be rich, and we gave her to understand that we were far from being so; she will soon feel therefore that we are not worth her acquaintance.”
–
letter of January 7 1807
[On the weather:]
“We have been exceedingly busy ever since you went away. In the first place we have had to rejoice two or three times every day at your having such very delightful weather for the whole of your journey…”
–
letter of October 25 1800
“How do you like this cold weather? I hope you have all been earnestly praying for it as a salutary relief from the dreadful mild and unhealthy season preceding it, fancying yourself half putrified from the want of it, and that now you all draw into the fire, complain that you never felt such bitterness of cold before, that you are half starved, quite frozen, and wish the mild weather back again with all your hearts.”
–
letter of January 25th 1801
“I am sorry my mother has been suffering, and am afraid this exquisite weather is too good to agree with her. I enjoy it all over me, from top to toe, from right to left, longitudinally, perpendicularly, diagonally; and I cannot but selfishly hope we are to have it last till Christmas — nice, unwholesome, unseasonable, relaxing, close, muggy weather.”
–
letter of December 2 1815
“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.”
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letter of September 28 1814
“By the bye, as I must leave off being young, I find many Douceurs in being a sort of chaperon [at dances], for I am put on the Sofa near the Fire & can drink as much wine as I like.”
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letter of November 6th 1813
“I bought a Concert Ticket and a sprig of flowers for my old age.” [She was then 37.]
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letter of November 3rd 1813
“[I] 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!”
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letter of April/May 1811
“Our ball was rather more amusing than I expected. … The melancholy part was, to see so many dozen young women standing by without partners, and each of them with two ugly naked shoulders! It was the same room in which we danced fifteen years ago! I thought it all over, and in spite of the shame of being so much older, felt with thankfulness that I was quite as happy now as then.”
–
letter of December 9, 1808
[Jane Austen had a running joke with her family about her marrying the poet Crabbe, whose poetry she admired:]“No, I have never seen [news of] the death of Mrs. Crabbe. I have only just been making out from one of his prefaces that he probably was married. … Poor woman! I will comfort him as well as I can, but I do not undertake to be good to her children. She had better not leave any.”
–
letter of October 18, 1813
“I am to meet Mrs. Harrison, and we are to talk about Ben and
Anna [a young engaged couple]. “My dear Mrs. Harrison,” I shall say, “I am afraid the young man has some of your family madness, and though there often appears to be something of madness in Anna too, I think she inherits more of it from her mother’s family than from ours.” That is what I shall say, and I think she will find it difficult to answer me.”
–
letter of November 3rd 1813
“Ben and
Anna walked here… and she looked so pretty, it was quite a pleasure to see her, so young and so blooming, and so innocent, as if she had never had a wicked thought in her life, which yet one has some reason to suppose she must have had, if we believe the doctrine of original sin.”
–
letter of February 20, 1817
“I do not like the Miss Blackstones; indeed, I was always determined not to like them, so there is the less merit in it.”
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letter of January 8 1799
“I will not say that your mulberry-trees are dead, but I am afraid they are not alive.”
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letter of May 31 1811
“Expect a most agreeable letter, for not being overburdened with subject (having nothing at all to say), I shall have no check to my genius from beginning to end.”
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letter of January 21 1801
For more on Jane Austen please visit:
http://www.pemberley.com/
Happy Reading!!!
