Jane Austen Famous Quotes

Lady Jane Gray, who tho' inferior to her lovely Cousin the Queen of Scots, was yet an amiable young woman & famous for reading Greek while other people were hunting....Whether she really understood that language or whether such a study proceeded only from an excess of vanity for which I beleive she was always rather remarkable, is uncertain.

The next day I lay out on the grass in our backyard and I looked straight into the sun, the way my mother had told me never to do because it would damage my eyes. I thought that I would grow up to be a famous artist and everything and everyone I saw, everything and everyone I painted, would be blinding to look at.

To say the truth,' replied Miss Crawford, 'I am something like the famous Doge at the court of Lewis XIV.; and may declare that I see no wonder in this shrubbery equal to seeing myself in it

I shall retreat in as much secrecy as possible to the most remote corner of the house, where I shall order a barrel of oysters, and be famously snug.

Pride and Prejudice opens with one of the most famous sentences ever written: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." With these words, Jane Austen announced to her readers that they were about to meet such a man and the people eager to marry him off. What was more, they were going to have fun. The dark cynicism of Sense and Sensibility was largely gone, blown away by a clean, fresh wind.

But , Mr. Knightley, are you perfectly sure that she has absolutely and downright accepted him? I could suppose she might in time, but can she already? Did not you misunderstand him? You were both talking of other things; of business, shows of cattle, or new drills; and might not you, in the confusion of so many subjects, mistake him? It was not Harriet's hand that he was certain of- it was the dimensions of some famous ox.

Through these stories, Mariana fell in love with a vision of England and Englishness—an England that had quite possibly never existed beyond the pages of these books: an England of warm summer rain, and wet greenery, and apple blossom; winding rivers and willow trees, and country pubs with roaring fires. The England of the Famous Five, and Peter Pan and Wendy; King Arthur and Camelot; Wuthering Heights and Jane Austen, Shakespeare—and Tennyson.

Donwell was famous for its strawberry-beds, which seemed a plea for the invitation: but no plea was necessary; cabbage-beds would have been enough to tempt the lady, who only wanted to be going somewhere.

It is a fact universally acknowledged that a woman in possession of an opinion must be in want of a correction. Well, actually, no it isn't, but who doesn't love riffing on Jane Austen and her famous opening sentence? The answer is: lots of people, because we're all different and some of us haven't even read Pride and Prejudice dozens of times, but the main point is that I've been performing interesting experiments in proffering my opinions and finding that some of the people out there, particularly men, respond on the grounds that my opinion is wrong, while theirs is right because they are convinced that their opinion is a fact, while mine is a delusion. Sometimes they also seem to think that they are in charge, of me as well as facts.

She thought of the famous Arctic explorers crossing flat white lands of ice, and Captain Cook sailing to the Pacific, and the men who had started and fought wars over the centuries, and all that male energy going outward, seeking to conquer, seeking to own. And she had gone inward in a way, into the confines of a neglected old house, not even truly a home anymore. She had seen the thing right under everyone's eyes, and she hadn't let it go or been subsumed by the rigours of daily life. She had made space for that discover in the midst of a most contained life, the life that the world seemed bent on handing her.

He told her of horses which he had bought for a trifle and sold for incredible sums; of racing matches, in which his judgment had infallibly foretold the winner; of shooting parties, in which he had killed more birds (though without having one good shot) than all his companions together; and described to her some famous day’s sport, with the fox-hounds, in which his foresight and skill in directing the dogs had repaired the mistakes of the most experienced huntsman, and in which the boldness of his riding, though it had never endangered his own life for a moment, had been constantly leading others into difficulties, which he calmly concluded had broken the necks of many. Little as Catherine was in the habit of judging for herself, and unfixed as were her general notions of what men ought to be, she could not entirely repress a doubt, while she bore with the effusions of his endless conceit, of his being altogether completely agreeable.

I mention this because Les Misérables is an anomaly: It is a big book—weighty in heft (quite literally), ambitious in theme, and an iconic part of popular culture—that people think they know . . . but don’t. Because they haven’t read it. Unlike The Great Gatsby, it’s a doorstop. Unlike the half dozen novels Jane Austen gave us, it has not become a fixture in reading group circles. And, for better or worse, the narrative is filled with lengthy digressions about the battle of Waterloo, the origins and meaning of “argot,” and (most famously) the Paris sewers. In my obsessively underlined copy of the novel, it is not until the one hundred and second page that Jean Valjean finally steals the bishop’s silver candlesticks.

In his famous novel Émile (1762), Rousseau tries to show that boys should be brought up as close to nature as possible, learning by experience. Girls do not need to be educated rationally: their role in life is to please men. Accordingly, Thomas abstracted two girls from orphanages and named them Sabrina and Lucretia. He took them to France to educate them according to Rousseau’s precepts so that one girl could become the perfect wife (one was a spare). He taught them to read and write, and tried to instil in them a hatred of fripperies like fashion, fine titles and luxuries. While the girls were growing up, Day became enamoured of several genteel women, none of whom were prepared to conform to his ideas of wifely perfection. Meanwhile, Lucretia did not cope well with Day’s training programme and he was forced to abandon the experiment. He gave her some money and she later married a shopkeeper. However, Thomas became more and more attached to Sabrina, and their friends expected them to marry. According to Richard Lovell Edgeworth in his Memoirs, Day was ‘never more loved by any woman… nor do I believe, that any woman was to him ever personally more agreeable.’ But Sabrina ‘was too young and artless, to feel the extent of that importance, which my friend [Day] annexed to trifling concessions or resistance to fashion, particularly with respect to female dress.’ Day left Sabrina at a friend’s house, along with some strict instructions on her mode of dress. Then disaster struck over a ‘trifling circumstance… She did, or did not, wear certain long sleeves, and some handkerchief, which had been the object of his dislike, or of his liking.’ Unfortunately Day equated her obedience to his wishes with proof of her attachment; disobedience proved ‘her want of strength of mind.’ So Thomas ‘quitted her for ever!’ He later married a Yorkshire heiress; Sabrina married a barrister.

Even Austen’s famous first sentence has an echo in one of Burney’s: “[It is] received wisdom among matchmakers, that a young lady without fortune has a less and less chance of getting off upon every public appearance.”44

We did not think of her as being clever, still less as being famous; but we valued her as one always kind, sympathising, and amusing

I love you," I told the library, staring at the mezzanine level with its intricate gold railings, marble columns, and marble busts of famous authors and poets—I spotted Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Rudyard Kipling, and Emily Dickinson.

She was fortunate enough to see the superb comic actress Dora Jordan, star of Covent Garden and mistress to the Duke of Clarence, playing the part of Nell in The Devil to Pay, one of her most famous roles. Nell is a timid cobbler’s wife who is magically transformed into an aristocratic society mistress who makes a better wife to her husband, Sir John, and a kinder mistress to her servants than the irascible Lady Loverule. Because of her success in this role, Dora was known as ‘Nell of Clarence’. Jane was ‘highly amused’ – strong praise from a woman with her standards.

Frank, the most pious of the brothers, was known for lacking a sense of humour. He was a ponderous and serious-minded sailor. In the Austen family his letters were famous for their length and their mundane detail. A family anecdote recalled his character perfectly. A naval colleague went swimming in the tropics. Frank observed calmly and slowly, ‘Mr Pakenham you are in danger of a shark – a shark of the blue species.’ The captain thought it was a joke, but was told by Frank, ‘I am not given to joking. If you do not return immediately, soon the shark will eat you.

The most famous courtesy book is Il Cortegiano by Baldassare Castiglione, published in 1528.

Jane Austen employs in Emma, which famously begins: Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever and rich, with a comfortable home and a happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.