Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austenwas an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels which interpret, critique and comment upon the life of the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Her most highly praised novel during her lifetime was Pride and Prejudice, her second published novel. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favorable social standing and economic security...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth16 December 1775
CitySteventon, England
To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain for the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.
What wild imaginations one forms where dear self is concerned! How sure to be mistaken!
It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage.
At my time of life opinions are tolerably fixed. It is not likely that I should now see or hear anything to change them.
I consider a country-dance as an emblem of marriage. Fidelity and complaisance are the principle duties of both; and those men who do not choose to dance or to marry them selves, have no business with the partners or wives of the neighbors.
Undoubtedly ... there is a meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. What bears affinity to cunning is despicable.
If I am wrong, I am doing what I believe to the right.
Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain.
Where an opinion is general, it is usually correct.
Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor. Which is one very strong argument in favor of matrimony.
Business, you know, may bring you money, but friendship hardly ever does.
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.
And what am I to do on the occasion? -- It seems an hopeless business.
I can easily believe it. Women of that class have great opportunities, and if they are intelligent may be well worth listening to. Such varieites of human nature as they are in the habit of witnessing! And it is not merely in its follies, that they are read; for they see it occasionally under every circumstance that can be most interesting or affecting. What instances must pass before them of ardent, disinterested, self-denying attachment, of heroism, fortitude, patience, resignation-- of all the sacrifices that ennoble us most. A sick chamber may often furnish the worth of volumes.