Quote Atlassourced quotes & context
Author & topic collection

Positive Quotes by Jane Austen

Browse 6 quotations connecting Jane Austen with Positive, with meanings, source notes and related themes.

Sources

Where these positive quotations appear

Sources represented here include Persuasion, Emma, Pride and Prejudice.

6 shown
Quotations

6 matching quotations with meanings and source context

Source identified1
There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.

“There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.”

Voice: Fictional character · Mrs. Elton

Home is valued not for spectacle but for familiarity, ease, and the freedom to lower one’s guard.

Source details

Emma, Volume II, Chapter XIV, scan-backed 1816 John Murray first edition on Wikisource. Mrs. Elton declares that there is nothing like staying at home for real comfort while boasting at length about her supposed devotion to home, Maple Grove and social independence; the comic context makes this fictional character speech rather than Austen’s unqualified domestic maxim.

Source identified2
You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.”

Voice: Fictional character · Captain Frederick Wentworth (letter)

Wentworth’s letter holds pain and possibility together: the renewed declaration is intense because he still does not know whether Anne’s feelings have survived their long separation.

Source details

Persuasion, Chapter XXIII, Project Gutenberg #105. Captain Frederick Wentworth writes the line to Anne Elliot while listening to her conversation with Captain Harville; the letter is signed “F. W.” and is fictional character writing, not Austen autobiography.

Source identified3
I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve.

“I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve.”

Voice: Fictional character · Captain Frederick Wentworth

The line combines joy with humility: Wentworth recognizes that his renewed happiness exceeds what his earlier pride and mistakes make him feel he has earned.

Source details

Persuasion, Chapter XXIII. Captain Frederick Wentworth says this to Anne Elliot while reflecting on the six years of separation his pride helped prolong.

Source identified4
All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one; you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.

“All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one; you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.”

Voice: Fictional character · Anne Elliot

Anne claims endurance in love for women within a debate about constancy, but Austen gives the argument to a character in a particular social setting rather than presenting it as objective psychology about either sex.

Source details

Persuasion, Chapter XXIII, Project Gutenberg #105. Anne Elliot says this to Captain Harville after he describes men’s attachment to wives and families; the exchange immediately leads into Wentworth’s written declaration.

Source identified5
I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!”

Voice: Fictional character · Caroline Bingley

The line is memorable as praise of reading, though its comic context matters because Miss Bingley says it while performing interest for Darcy.

Source details

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 11; context is ironic.

Source identified6
Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience—or give it a more fascinating name: call it hope.
Image design Golden Hour

“Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience—or give it a more fascinating name: call it hope.”

Voice: Fictional character · Mrs. Dashwood

Happiness can depend less on dramatic change than on recognizing what is already possible and waiting without giving up.

Source details

Sense and Sensibility.

More from this author

Other topic collections for Jane Austen