Quote

Undoubtedly ... there is a meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. What bears affinity to cunning is despicable.

Jane Austen

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jane Austen
Age: 101 †
Born: 1775
Born: December 16
Died: 1877
Died: July 24
Novelist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Steventon
Hampshire
Sometimes
Meanness
Affinity
Employ
Cunning
Ladies
Arts
Condescend
Bears
Despicable
Art
Undoubtedly

More quotes by Jane Austen

Image
The stream is as good as at first the little rubbish it collects in the turnings is easily moved away.
Jane Austen
Image
Catherine had never wanted comfort more, and he [Henry] looked as if he was aware of it.
Jane Austen
Image
She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.
Jane Austen
Image
She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should meet.
Jane Austen
Image
A very short trial convinced her that a curricle was the prettiest equipage in the world.
Jane Austen
Image
If people like to read their books, it is all very well, but to be at so much trouble in filling great volumes, which, as I used to think, nobody would willingly ever look into, to be labouring only for the torment of little boys and girls, always struck me as a hard fate.
Jane Austen
Image
And pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked.
Jane Austen
Image
But to live in ignorance on such a point was impossible.
Jane Austen
Image
Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want.
Jane Austen
Image
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.
Jane Austen
Image
Every young lady may feel for my heroine in this critical moment, for every young lady has at some time or other known the same agitation.
Jane Austen
Image
“It is not everyone,” said Elinor, “who has your passion for dead leaves.”
Jane Austen
Image
Elinor could sit still no longer. She almost ran out of the room, and as soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first she thought would never cease.
Jane Austen
Image
Faultless in spite of all her faults.
Jane Austen
Image
she was oppressed, she was overcome by her own felicity and happily disposed as is the human mind to be easily familiarized with any change for the better, it required several hours to give sedateness to her spirits, or any degree of tranquillity to her heart.
Jane Austen
Image
I am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.
Jane Austen
Image
…she felt depressed beyond any thing she had ever known before.
Jane Austen
Image
Now I must give one smirk and then we may be rational again
Jane Austen
Image
And if I had not a letter to write myself, I might sit by you and admire the evenness of your writing, as another young lady once did. But I have an aunt too, who must not be longer neglected.
Jane Austen
Image
I can recollect nothing more to say at present perhaps breakfast may assist my ideas. I was deceived -- my breakfast supplied only two ideas -- that the rolls were good and the butter bad.
Jane Austen