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Persuasion Quotes by Jane Austen: Context & Meanings

6 quotations linked to Persuasion by or associated with Jane Austen, with source notes, explanations and related topics.

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About this source

Jane Austen’s final completed novel, published in the 1818 edition

Topics and ideas

Love, constancy, second chances, regret, maturity, social constraint, education, writing, communication and the effects of persuasion on personal choice.

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Primary / edition source · en.wikisource.org ↗ Primary / edition source · en.wikisource.org ↗
Leading themes in this source

Prominent ideas connected with the quotations represented here

Love 4Relationship 4Broken Heart 4Positive Quotes About a Constructive Outlook 3Short 3Trust 3Communication 2Hope Quotes About Possibility in Uncertain Times 2Independence 2Life 2Regret 2Thought-Provoking Quotes That Invite Reflection 2History 2Deep 1
Represented passages

6 quotations with source context and meaning

Source identified1
You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.
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“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.”

Jane Austen
Voice: Fictional character · Captain Frederick Wentworth (letter)
Meaning & context

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.

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Source identified2
I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve.
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“I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve.”

Jane Austen
Voice: Fictional character · Captain Frederick Wentworth
Meaning & context

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.

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Source identified3
We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us.
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“We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us.”

Jane Austen
Voice: Fictional character · Anne Elliot
Meaning & context

Anne links emotional persistence partly to social circumstance: restricted movement and occupation can leave fewer external demands to interrupt sustained feeling.

Source details

Persuasion, Chapter XXIII, Project Gutenberg #105. Anne Elliot says this to Captain Harville while contrasting women’s domestic confinement with men’s professions, business, travel and continual occupation. It is a historically situated fictional argument, not a modern mental-health claim.

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Source identified4
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
Voice: Narrator voice · Narrator
Meaning & context

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 details

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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Source identified5
Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands.
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“Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands.”

Jane Austen
Voice: Fictional character · Anne Elliot
Meaning & context

Anne challenges the neutrality of inherited literary evidence by pointing to unequal access to education and authorship, asking who had the power to preserve one sex’s version of experience in books.

Source details

Persuasion, Chapter XXIII, Project Gutenberg #105. Anne Elliot says this to Captain Harville while refusing to let books settle their argument about whether men or women love longer.

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Source identified6
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.
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“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.”

Jane Austen
Voice: Fictional character · Anne Elliot
Meaning & context

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.

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More represented works

Continue through other sources by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice1813 · 9 quotationsEmma1815 · 6 quotationsMansfield Park1814 · 2 quotationsNorthanger Abbey1818 first edition; written/revised earlier · 2 quotations
Sense and Sensibility1811 · 1 quotation