Author Highlight: Meaningful Quotes by Jane Austen

Oh, how we love a good book around here! We're guessing you do too. For today's author highlight, we're enjoying the great literary works of one of the most famous authors of all time: Jane Austen. 

About the author:

Jane Austen, born on December 16, 1775, in the charming village of Steventon, Hampshire, England, was an incredibly gifted English novelist. She grew up in a close-knit family with a father who was a clergyman, a sister she was very close to, and a mother who heavily influenced Janes's writings. Cassandra and George, Janes's mother and father, had eight children together, with Jane being the seventh child (and second daughter). Thanks to her mother and father's influence, Jane was exposed to literature early on in her life. Quick-witted, keenly observant to her surroundings, and deeply understanding of human nature, she wrote novels that continue to draw in readers worldwide, hundreds of years later. 

Jane Austen's timeless works, such as "Pride and Prejudice," "Sense and Sensibility," and "Emma," focus on the lives of the British landed gentry (rich or upper class of the day) during the early 19th century. Her stories offer a glimpse into the complexity of social interactions, love, marriage, and the challenges faced by women of her time. Much like Emily Dickinson who we featured last month,  Jane Austen never experienced widespread fame during her lifetime and her writings gained worldwide popularity only after her death on July 18, 1817.

Today, Jane Austen's works remain as popular as ever. I find it very interesting that Jane's writings often center around truths about love, romance, and marriage, even though there is no record that she ever married or had serious romantic relationships. What an interesting person she was, indeed!

Top Quotes:

1. "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
2. "I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library."
3. "I wish, as well as everybody else, to be perfectly happy; but, like everybody else, it must be in my own way."
4. "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."
5. "Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love."
6. "A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment."
7. "I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control."
8. "The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid."
9. "There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort."
10. "Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain."
11. "A person who can write a long letter with ease cannot write ill."
12. "To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love."
13. "There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves."
14. "We are all fools in love."
15. "One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other."
16. "Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure."
17. "I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal."
18. "It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we do."
19. "Business, you know, may bring you money, but friendship hardly ever does."
20. "The distance is nothing when one has a motive."

Here to help, 

Brier C.