On Jane Austen's Birthday: Famous Quotes on Proposals, Love, Life, and Self in The Lady's Novels

Portrait of Jane Austen by her sister, Cassandra

Born on December 16, 1775 in Steventon, Hampshire, Jane Austen is considered as one of the best English novelist of all times. Her stature in the English Literature is so great that she is sometimes rightly referred to as Lady Shakespeare. With just six complete novels, a few unfinished manuscripts, and a handful of letters written to her family members, mainly her sister, Cassandra during her lifetime, Austen has left an indelible mark on the heart of literature. Her characters are timeless and her themes universal. About her own writings, in one of her letters, she remarked, "the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labour." Austen's wit, social realism, biting irony, and sense of humour make her novels extremely delightful. Here's to remembering The Lady on her birthday:

Famous Quotations Providing Love Proposals From Austen's Heros to Their Respective Heroines

"Had I loved you less, I'd have been able to talk about it more." - Mr. Knightley to Emma (Emma)

"In vain I have struggled. It will not do. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." - Mr. Darcy to Elizabeth (Pride and Prejudice) 

"I can listen no longer in silence. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope." - Captain Wentworth to Anne Elliott (Persuasion) 

". . . that Marianne found her ownhappiness in forming [Col. Brandon’s] was equally the persuasion and delight of each observing friend. Marianne could never love by halves; and her whole heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband as it had once been to Willoughby.” - The Narrator (Upon Marriane's engagement to Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility) 

"I come here with no expectations, only to profess, now that I am at liberty to do so, that my heart is and always will be yours." - Edward Ferrars to Elinor (Sense & Sensibility) 

"I felt myself bound to you, by honour, by affection, and by a love so strong that nothing could deter me." - Henry Tilney to Catherine Morland (Northanger Abbey) 

She was of course only too good for him; ... His happiness in knowing himself to have been so long the beloved of such a heart, must have been great enough to warrant any strength of language in which he could clothe it to her or to himself; it must have been a delightful happiness." - The Narrator (Upon Edmund Betram's realization of love for Fanny Price in Mansfield Park)  

Famous Quotes on Love, Life and Self in Austen's Novels 

“Henry and Catherine were married, the bells rang, and every body smiled; and, as this took place within a twelvemonth from the first day of their meeting, it will not appear, after all the dreadful delays occasioned by the General’s cruelty, that they were essentially hurt by it. To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen, is to do

pretty well.” - (Northanger Abbey) 

"Only the deepest kind of affection shall persuade me into matrimony, which is why I might end up as an old maid." - Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice) 

"She had a lively and playful disposition that delighted in everything ridiculous." - (About Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice) 

"I am not a great reader and I have pleasure in many things." - Elizabeth Bennet  (Pride and Prejudice)

"I could easily forgive his pride if he had not mortified mine." - Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice) 

"I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters" - Anne Elliott (Persuasion) 

"She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she was not wise yet." - (About Anne Elliott in Persuasion) 

"Happiness in marriage is a matter of Chance" - Pride And Prejudice 

"She had many rare and fine qualities but Sobriety is not one of them." - (About Marriane in Sense and Sensibility)  

"He will make you happy, Fanny; I know he will make you happy; but you will make him everything." - Mansfield Park 

"The road to heaven is equally short from all the places." 

"Slyness has something fashionable about it." 

"The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love." 

"Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are men to rocks and mountains?" - Pride and Prejudice. 

“To pursue a man merely for the sake of situation, is a sort of thing that shocks me; I cannot understand it. Poverty is a great evil; but to a woman of education and feeling it ought not, it cannot be the greatest. I would rather be teacher at a school (and I can think of nothing worse) than marry a man I did not like.” (The Watsons) 

"There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves; it is not my nature." - Northanger Abbey 

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has no pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid" - Catherine Morland (Northanger Abbey) 

This sort of mysteriousness, which is always so becoming in a hero, threw a fresh grace in Catherine's imagination around his persona and manners, and increased her anxiety to know more of him. - Northanger Abbey 

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