Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
26 quotes
"But there was happiness elsewhere which no description can reach."
"Yet some happiness must and would arise, from the very conviction, that he did suffer."
"I will not talk of my own happiness,' said he, 'great as it is, for I think only of yours. Compared with you, who has the right to be happy?"
"…for I look upon the Frasers to be about as unhappy as most other married people."
"The promised notification was hanging over her head. The postman's knock within the neighbourhood was beginning to bring its daily terrors -and if reading could banish the idea for even half an hour, it was something gained."
"...And if reading could banish the idea for even half an hour, it was something gained."
"Fanny spoke her feelings. "Here's harmony!" said she; "here's repose! Here's what may leave all painting and all music behind, and what may tranquillise every care, and lift the heart to rapture! When I look out on such a night as this, I feel as if there could be neither wickedness nor sorrow in the world; and there certainly would be less of both if the sublimity of Nature were more attended to, and people were carried more out of themselves by contemplating such a scene."
"I am worn out with civility. I have been talking incessantly all night, and with nothing to say. But with you there may be peace. You will not want to be talked to. Let us have the luxury of silence."
"Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply; and it must be by a long and unnatural estrangement, by a divorce which no subsequent connection can justify, if such precious remains of the earliest attachments are ever entirely outlived."
"Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply."
"So long divided and so differently situated, the ties of blood were little more than nothing."
"I feel as if I could be any thing or every thing, as if I could rant and storm, or sigh, or cut capers in any tragedy or comedy in the English language."
"Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in theirpower, which no subsequent connections can supply.."
"Maria was married on Saturday. In all important preparations of mind she was complete, being prepared for matrimony by a hatred of home, by the misery of disappointed affection, and contempt of the man she was to marry. The bride was elegantly dressed and the two bridesmaids were duly inferior. Her mother stood with salts, expecting to be agitated, and her aunt tried to cry. Marriage is indeed a maneuvering business."
"She wished such words unsaid with all her heart"
"Mrs. Norris had been talking to her the whole way from Northampton of her wonderful good fortune, and the extraordinary degree of gratitude and good behaviour which it ought to produce, and her consciousness of misery was therefore increased by the idea of its being a wicked thing for her not to be happy."
"If this man had not twelve thousand a year, he would be a very stupid fellow."
"He had suffered, and he had learnt to think, two advantages that he had never known before…"
"Her feelings were very acute, and too little understood to be properly attended to. Nobody meant to be unkind, but nobody put themselves out of their way to secure her comfort."
"Much was said, and much was ate, and all went well."
"She was of course only too good for him; but as nobody minds having what is too good for them, he was very steadily earnest in the pursuit of the blessing, and it was not possible that encouragement from her should be long wanting."
"I should wish to see them very good friends, and would, on no account, authorize in my girls the smallest degree of arrogance towards their relations; but still they cannot be equals.” (10)"
"Shall I ask you how the church is to be filled, if a man is neither to take orders with a living, nor without?"
"It was a very proper wedding. The bride was elegantly dressed---the two bridemaids were duly inferior---her father gave her away---her mother stood with salts in her hand expecting to be agitated---her aunt tried to cry--- and the service was impressively read by Dr. Grant."
"Poor woman! She probably thought change of air might agree with many of her children."