Jane Austen Quotes

All story and no reflection

Ack!  I couldn't get into Typepad ealier.

"Provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she had never any objection to books at all."

Of Catherine's reading habits
Northanger Abbey, volume 1, chapter 1

Almost pretty

"'Catherine grows quite a good-looking girl, -- she is almost pretty today,' were words which caught her ears now and then; and how welcome were the sounds!  To look almost pretty, is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life, than a beauty from the cradle can ever receive."

Of sweet Catherine Morland
Northanger Abbey, volume 1, chapter 1

Felicity Jones as Catherine.

Blameless

"While Lady Elliot lived, there had been method, moderation, and economy, which had just kept him within his income; but with her had died all such right-mindedness, and from that period he had been constantly exceediing it.  It had not been possible for him to spend less: he had done nothing but what Sir Walter Elliot was imperiously called on to do; but blameless as he was, he was not only growing dreadfully in debt, but was hearing of it so often, that it became vain to attempt concealing it longer."

Persuasion, volume 1, chapter 1

Prosperity and nothingness

"Such were Elizabeth Elliot's sentiments and sensations; such the cares to alloy, the agitations to vary, the sameness and the elegance, the prosperity and the nothingness of her scene of life. . ."

Persuasion, volume 1, chapter 1

I love that phrase--"the prosperity and the nothingness."

Years of danger

"She had the consciousness of being nine-and-twenty to give her some regrets and some apprehensions; she was fully satisfied of being still quite as handsome as ever, but she felt her approach to the years of danger, and would have rejoiced to be certain of being properly solicited by baronet-blood within the next twelvemonth or two."

Of Elizabeth Elliot
Persuasion, volume 1, chapter 1

Only Anne

"His two other children were of very inferior value. . . . Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness of character, which must have placed her high with any people of real understanding, was nobody with either father or sister; her word had no weight, her convenience was always to give way -- she was only Anne."

Persuasion, volume 1, chapter 1

Vanity, thy name is Sir Walter

"Vanity was the beginning and end of Sir Walter Elliot's character: vanity of person and of situation. He had been remarkably handsome in his youth, and at fifty-four was still a very fine man. . . . He considered the blessing of beauty as inferior only to the blessing of a baronetcy; and the Sir Walter Elliot, who united these gifts, was the constant object of his warmest respect and devotion."

Persuasion, volume 1, chapter 1

Thanks to Kellynch.com for the image -- check out this lovely site!

Such sort of people

"Let me counsel you to remember that a lady, whether so called from birth or only from fortune, should never degrade herself by being put on a level with writers, and such sort of people."

miser Mr. Briggs, Cecilia's guardian, who refuses to give her any of her own money to pay the bookseller
Fanny Burney's Cecilia, volume 2, book 3, chapter 2

Always best

"It is always best to do right, however tardily; always better to repent, than to grow callous in wrong."

Cecilia (who is a little too good, imho)
Fanny Burney's Cecilia, volume 4, book 8, chapter 1

A world full of mortifications

"The world is full of mortifications, and to endure, or to sink under them, makes all the distinction between the noble or the weak-minded."

the elegant Mrs. Delvile to Cecilia; Mrs. Delvile knows Cecilia is enduring the mortification of having to give up her affection for her son, Mortimer Delvile
Fanny Burney's Cecilia, volume 3, book 6, chapter 11