Jane Austen Quotes About Understanding

Emma, Volume I, Chapter IX, scan-backed 1816 John Murray first edition on Wikisource. Emma tells her father that one half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other while explaining why his grandchildren enjoy rough play that he himself cannot comprehend; this is Emma Woodhouse’s fictional dialogue, not Austen speaking autobiographically.

Emma, Volume III, Chapter XIII, scan-backed 1816 John Murray first edition on Wikisource. The narrator observes that complete truth seldom belongs to any human disclosure while explaining that even the Emma–Knightley understanding contains mistaken conduct alongside genuine feeling.

Emma, Volume II, Chapter VIII, scan-backed 1816 John Murray first edition on Wikisource. After Frank Churchill returns from an impulsive haircut, Emma “moralised to herself” that silly things can cease to seem silly when sensible people do them impudently. This is Emma Woodhouse’s ironic private judgment inside the novel, not Austen endorsing impudence as a general rule.

Pride and Prejudice; the line is preserved in the novel’s dialogue about anger, judgment, and the limits of certainty while emotions are high.

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter XI, Project Gutenberg #1342. Fitzwilliam Darcy says this to Elizabeth Bennet during their discussion of faults; Elizabeth immediately identifies the position as implacable resentment, so the novel itself does not leave the maxim unchallenged.

Pride and Prejudice, Volume 1, Chapter 1; Mr. Bennet responds to his wife’s complaint about her nerves.