Favourite Persuasion Quotes
I have re-read Jane Austen's Persuasion many times. It is my favourite of her six novels. I believe that it has got to be her best novel. It is a very human story - full of recognizable and genuine emotions. The depth of affection the two main characters, Anne and Frederick, have for each other is very touching.
Here are some quotes.
"He was, at the time, a remarkably fine young man, with a great deal of intelligence, spirit, and brilliancy; and Anne an extremely pretty girl, with gentleness, modesty, taste, and feeling. Half the sum of attraction, on either side, might have been enough, for he had nothing to do, and she had hardly anybody to love; but the encounter of such lavish recommendations could not fail. It would be difficult to say which had seen highest perfection in the other, or which had been the happiest: she, in receiving his declarations and proposals, or he in having them accepted."
Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth's first meeting, eight years before the story begins.
Persuasion, chapter 4
Persuasion, chapter 4
"It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before; and, generally speaking, if there has been neither ill-health nor anxiety, it is a time of life at which scarcely any charm is lost."
Persuasion, volume 1, chapter 1
"How eloquent could Anne Elliot have been! how eloquent, at least, were her wishes on the side of early warm attachment, and a cheerful confidence in futurity, against that over-anxious caution which seems to insult exertion and distrust Providence! She had been forced into prudence in her youth; she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning."
Persuasion, chapter 4
"Soon, however, she began to reason with herself, and try to be feeling less. . . . Alas! with all her reasonings she found that to retentive feelings eight years may be little more than nothing. Now, how were his sentiments to be read? Was this like wishing to avoid her? And the next moment she was hating herself for the folly which asked the question."
Anne, on encountering Captain Wentworth after not having seen him for years
"How eloquent could Anne Elliot have been! how eloquent, at least, were her wishes on the side of early warm attachment, and a cheerful confidence in futurity, against that over-anxious caution which seems to insult exertion and distrust Providence! She had been forced into prudence in her youth; she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning."
Persuasion, chapter 4
"Soon, however, she began to reason with herself, and try to be feeling less. . . . Alas! with all her reasonings she found that to retentive feelings eight years may be little more than nothing. Now, how were his sentiments to be read? Was this like wishing to avoid her? And the next moment she was hating herself for the folly which asked the question."
Anne, on encountering Captain Wentworth after not having seen him for years
Persuasion, volume 1, chapter 7
"His cold politeness, his ceremonious grace, were worse than anything."
Anne of Captain Wentworth
Persuasion, volume 1, chapter 8
Persuasion, volume 1, chapter 8
"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."
Anne to Captain Harville
Persuasion, volume 2, chapter 11
"Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes?"
Captain Wentworth's letter to Anne
Persuasion, volume 2, chapter 11
Persuasion, volume 2, chapter 11
"'It is a sort of pain, too, which is new to me. I have been used to the gratification of believing myself to earn every blessing that I enjoyed. I have valued myself on honourable toils and just rewards. Like other great men under reverses,' he added with a smile, 'I must endeavor to subdue my mind to my fortune. I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve."'
Captain Wentworth
Persuasion, volume 2, chapter 11
"There they exchanged again those feelings and those promises which had once before seemed to secure everything, but which had been followed by so many, many years of division and estrangement. There they returned again into the past, more exquisitely happy, perhaps, in their re-union, than when it had been first projected; more tender, more tried, more fixed in a knowledge of each other's character, truth, and attachment; more equal to act, more justified in acting."
Anne and Captain Wentworth's engagement.
Persuasion, volume 2, chapter 11
Originally posted at
http://www.thelogicgirl.com
Persuasion, volume 2, chapter 11
Originally posted at
http://www.thelogicgirl.com
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