Jane Austen (1775–1817) was a English novelist who wrote such celebrated novels Sense and Sensibility (1811,) Pride and Prejudice (1813,) Mansfield Park (1814,) Emma (1815,) and Persuasion (1818.) The latter, together with the earlier Northanger Abbey (begun in 1798,) were published after her death.
Austen was born into the English gentry, whose customs feature prominently in her novels. She shared a room for her whole life with her older sister Cassandra. Neither of them ever married. Not much is known about Jane’s life beyond minor details recorded in the letters that have survived—Cassandra burned or edited most of Jane’s correspondence. Jane had no personal acquaintance with any other prominent writer.
At the focal point of all of Austen’s novels is the complicated maneuvering that leads to marriage. Austen considers marriage not as a dull romantic climax, but as a complex moral and social conciliation that exposes much about human nature and frailty by substituting mental clarity and good judgment with idealization and self-deception. In Sense and Sensibility, her first book, Austen attempts to make sense of the discord between demands of heart and head. In Pride and Prejudice, Austen’s best-known novel, protagonist Elizabeth Bennet realizes how appearances could mislead, and what she could learn from recognizing the prejudices of the observer.
Austen died at 42, probably of Addison’s disease, lymphoma, or—as has been recently alleged—arsenic poisoning.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Jane Austen
I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Selfishness, Principles
Where a man does his best with only moderate powers, he will have the advantage over negligent superiority.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Power
Only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Authors & Writing, Fiction
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.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Reading
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of someone or other of their daughters.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Fortune, Family, Men & Women
To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Nature
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.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Women
One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Pleasure
In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Affection, Love
There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Safety
Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor. Which is one very strong argument in favor of matrimony.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Women
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
Topics: Disappointment
Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Humility
To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Dancing, Dance
With men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please, every feature works.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Men and Women, Men, Women, Men & Women
I am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Work
We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Self-Discovery
What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Weather
The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient-at others so bewildered and weak-and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control!
—Jane Austen
Topics: Memory
Business, you know, may bring you money, but friendship hardly ever does.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Business, Money, Friendship
For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?
—Jane Austen
Topics: Neighbors, Sports
An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged; no harm can be done.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Marriage
Grant us grace, Almighty Father, so to pray as to deserve to be heard.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Prayer
There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Home
That sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Happiness
The younger brother must help to pay for the pleasures of the elder.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Brothers
In every power, of which taste is the foundation, excellence is pretty fairly divided among the sexes.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Excellence
Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced and the inconvenience is often considerable.
—Jane Austen
Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation?
—Jane Austen
In vain have I struggled, it will not do. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.
—Jane Austen
Topics: Pride, Will, Love
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