Northanger Abbey Quotes

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“It is only a novel... or, in short, 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, Northanger Abbey

“A woman, especially if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of a man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire... Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a something of shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the latter.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.”
― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“No man is offended by another man's admiration of the woman he loves; it is the woman only who can make it a torment.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.”
― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“A fondness for reading, properly directed, must be an education in itself.”
― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“Oh! I am delighted with the book! I should like to spend my whole life in reading it.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.”
― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“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 her cradle can ever receive.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Beware how you give your heart.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Let us have the luxury of silence.”
― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“Every moment has its pleasures and its hope.”
― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance - a misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well−informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“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, Mansfield Park

“I assure you. I have no notion of treating men with such respect. That is the way to spoil them.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“If I could not be persuaded into doing what I thought wrong, I will never be tricked into it.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“[I]t is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Now I must give one smirk and then we may be rational again”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Friendship is really the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Oh! Do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.”
― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“Fanny! You are killing me!"
"No man dies of love but on the stage, Mr. Crawford.”
― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“Now I must give one smirk, and then we may be rational again." Catherine turned away her head, not knowing whether she might venture to laugh. "I see what you think of me," said he gravely -- "I shall make but a poor figure in your journal tomorrow."

My journal!"

Yes, I know exactly what you will say: Friday, went to the Lower Rooms; wore my sprigged muslin robe with blue trimmings -- plain black shoes -- appeared to much advantage; but was strangely harassed by a queer, half-witted man, who would make me dance with him, and distressed me by his nonsense."

Indeed I shall say no such thing."

Shall I tell you what you ought to say?"

If you please."

I danced with a very agreeable young man, introduced by Mr. King; had a great deal of conversation with him -- seems a most extraordinary genius -- hope I may know more of him. That, madam, is what I wish you to say."

But, perhaps, I keep no journal."

Perhaps you are not sitting in this room, and I am not sitting by you. These are points in which a doubt is equally possible. Not keep a journal! How are your absent cousins to understand the tenour of your life in Bath without one? How are the civilities and compliments of every day to be related as they ought to be, unless noted down every evening in a journal? How are your various dresses to be remembered, and the particular state of your complexion, and curl of your hair to be described in all their diversities, without having constant recourse to a journal? My dear madam, I am not so ignorant of young ladies' ways as you wish to believe me; it is this delightful habit of journaling which largely contributes to form the easy style of writing for which ladies are so generally celebrated. Everybody allows that the talent of writing agreeable letters is peculiarly female. Nature may have done something, but I am sure it must be essentially assisted by the practice of keeping a journal.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Where the heart is really attached, I know very well how little one can be pleased with the attention of any body else.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out.”
― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them.”
― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park