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She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.
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“She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.”

Jane Austen

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Source
Persuasion
Date
1818
Local voice
Narrator voice · Narrator
Meaning

Meaning of “She had been forced into prudence in her…”

The narrator summarizes Anne’s development as a reversal: excessive caution shaped her early choice, while experience later teaches her to value warmer confidence and attachment.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Persuasion, Chapter IV, Project Gutenberg #105. This is narrator commentary after Anne reconsiders the engagement she ended at nineteen under Lady Russell’s persuasion.

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Speaker context

Why the local voice matters

The narrator reflects on Anne Elliot in Chapter IV after reviewing the engagement she broke under Lady Russell’s persuasion.

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Themes

Ideas connected with this quotation

GrowthInspirational Quotes About Hope, Courage & PossibilityLifeLife AdviceLife LessonsLoveMotivation For LifePersonal GrowthRegretRelationshipTrustBeginningBroken HeartMaturityPerspective
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The first thing that experience finds to do is to free us from the phantoms of the brain—those false notions that have been put into us in youth.
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“The first thing that experience finds to do is to free us from the phantoms of the brain—those false notions that have been put into us in youth.”

Arthur Schopenhauer · Counsels and Maxims · 1851
Meaning & context

Experience is presented as corrective: inherited assumptions and youthful projections can be revised when later encounters expose a mismatch between expectation and reality.

Source details

Counsels and Maxims, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10715. The statement belongs to Schopenhauer’s broader, characteristically pessimistic discussion of age and experience.

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For of course rashness is the note of youth, prudence of old age.
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“For of course rashness is the note of youth, prudence of old age.”

Cicero · Cato on Old Age · 44 BCE
Voice: Dialogue speaker · Marcus Cato (Cato the Elder)
Meaning & context

The contrast assigns different characteristic strengths to stages of life, valuing experience for the restraint and judgment it can develop.

Source details

Cato on Old Age, Shuckburgh translation.

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Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.
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“Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.”

Proverbs · King James Bible — Proverbs 27:17 · 1611
Meaning & context

Good relationships can improve judgment and character through challenge, conversation, and mutual influence.

Source details

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The direction in which education starts a man, will determine his future life.
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“The direction in which education starts a man, will determine his future life.”

Plato · The Republic · 4th century BCE
Voice: Dialogue speaker · Socrates
Meaning & context

Early education shapes habits of attention and judgment, so its direction can influence the kind of person someone later becomes.

Source details

The Republic, Book IV in Benjamin Jowett’s translation; the line appears during discussion of education and civic character.

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For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: “It might have been!”
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“For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: “It might have been!””

John Greenleaf Whittier · Maud Muller · 1854
Voice: Poetic speaker · Narrator of “Maud Muller”
Meaning & context

Whittier compresses regret into the imagined alternative life: both Maud and the Judge later measure their ordinary lives against a possibility neither chose when they briefly met.

Source details

“Maud Muller,” in The Works of Whittier, Volume I, Project Gutenberg #9567. The poem first shows both characters imagining the life they might have shared, then calls “It might have been” the saddest formulation before ending with a separate note of hope.

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