Jane Austen's World

My book contest for Fashion in the Time of Jane Austen closed last month. The comments were outstanding and I loved every one of the quotes that were submitted. Every week, I will post another 5 – 10 until every quote has been featured. For those who cannot wait to read all 164 of them, click on this link.

Sami Abate: My favorite line would have to be what got me to read my first Austen novel, finally, in my thirties. It was a line from Emma I saw in a trailer for the BBC/PBS special…In the novel “then don’t speak it, don’t speak it. Take a little time, consider, do not commit yourself.”

Elizabeth: “There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient.” – Lady Catherine to Darcy, Pride and Prejudice

Jessica: “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” -Henry Tilney, Northanger Abbey, Chapter 14  (I love throwing this out there when ever someone tells me that I read too much or that I should stop reading.)

Cyn Hatmaker: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” – Pride & Prejudice, Chapter 1  (for me, this sums up the book in several points; some of which I’m still learning even after reading P&P more times than I can remember!)

aracir: “A man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart to such a woman! He ought not; he does not.” ~ Capt. Wentworth

Blair: “Where youth and diffidence are united, it requires uncommon steadiness of reason to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl in the world.”

Olivia: “… if she should die, it would be a comfort to know that it was all in pursuit of Mr Bingley, and under your orders.” – Mr. Bennet, Pride and Prejudice (It just says so much!)

Lauren: “It is not every one,” said Elinor, “who has your passion for dead leaves.” Sense and Sensibility (LOVE this giveaway! Book looks fab!)

Gehayi: My favorite bit ends in the middle of a sentence. “They came from Birmingham, which is not a place to promise much, you know, Mr. Weston. One has not great hopes from Birmingham. I always say there is something direful in the sound: but nothing more is positively known of the Tupmans, though a good many things I assure you are suspected; and yet by their manners they evidently think themselves equal even to my brother, Mr. Suckling, who happens to be one of their nearest neighbours.” – Chapter 36 of Emma

Barbara: ” Yes,” replied Darcy, who could contain himself no longer, “but that was only when I first knew her, for it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance.” -Darcy, speaking to Miss Bingley about Lizzie.

Jael:

No,” he calmly replied, “there is but one married woman in the world whom I can ever allow to invite what guests she pleases to Donwell, and that one is — ”

“Mrs. Weston, I suppose,” interrupted Mrs. Elton, rather mortified.

“No — Mrs. Knightley; and, till she is in being, I will manage such matters myself.” – Mrs. Elton and Mr. Knightly from Emma Chapter 42

Laurie :@ Little Blue Chairs  “I cannot fix on the hour, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”- Darcy, Pride and Prejudice

Raquel: …and feeling in herself the right of seniority of mind, she ventured to recommend a larger allowance of prose in his daily study… Persuasion, Ch. 11

Denise: I have several quotes that are my favorite. But I think this one below is very true towards myself.  “All the privilege I claim for my own sex… is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.” –Anne Elliot

Elizabeth K: Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone.  – Northanger Abbey

Nikki Markle: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”

Katherine : I love this quote from Persuasion, it’s so beautiful and heart wrenching:  “…There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so simliar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved. Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become aquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement.”

Christine H.: I have so many! My current favorite: “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours and laugh at them in our turn?” ~Pride & Prejudice