I just finished reading Mansfield Park by Jane Austen and truly, I loved it. Not in the way I love some of her other novels--indeed, the style hardly felt like Austen's in some parts. It gave a more intimate acquaintance with the heroine and many of the characters, and it was thought-provoking. I am ashamed to admit it but here and there in the beginning of the story I recognized some of my weak points in Mary Crawford....perish the thought. :P I was inspired by Fanny, vexed but in love with Edmund, and disappointed, gravely, by Henry Crawford who had won me over in his "faithful" love for Fanny....but all details aside, I soon realized that this book contained some of her most famous quotes, and as so many of them match my theme for this blog party, I thought I'd ferret them out and share them with you. :)"Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way." -Jane Austen
"A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of." -Jane Austen
"I cannot think well of a man who sports with any woman's feelings; there may often be a great deal more suffered than a stander-by can judge of." -Jane Austen
"Nothing amuses me more than the easy manner with which everybody settles the abundance of those who have a great deal less than themselves." -Jane Austen
"But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them." -Jane Austen (love love love love this one. So. True.)
“I pay very little regard…to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person.”-Jane Austen
"Good-humoured, unaffected girls, will not do for a man who has been used to sensible women. They are two distinct orders of being." -Jane Austen
“The enthusiasm of a woman’s love is even beyond the biographer’s.” -Jane Austen
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Oh, hurrah - someone else who enjoyed Mansfield Park as much as I did! It is in general the least-appreciated of Austen's novels, which I find sad indeed. It doesn't have the lively elements that characterize Austen's works, but I think that it is also deeper than her other stories. There is so much to be admired in Fanny - so much to note and to avoid in the characters of Henry and Mary Crawford. Yes, I do heartily love Mansfield Park. (It is also the only one of Austen's novels that does not relax me; Henry Crawford puts me into a rage!)
"Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way." - So terribly true. Jane Austen could speak a great deal of plain, no-nonsense truth while still keeping her tongue firmly in her cheek!
These are great. :)
Love the quotes, Rachel!! I have yet to read Mansfield Park but believe I shall soon. Hopefully that is. I'm in the middle of reading other things. So perhaps this summer before college starts. It sounds like a wonderful story.
@Abigail Hartman, yes, I loved Mansfield Park...it was so different yet so neat. :) And I agree--it had a depth that you do not find as often in Austen's works as in other authors'. She touched on lots of subjects I'm more accustomed to seeing in some of Dickens' characters like Amy Dorrit and Esther Summerson. :)
@Londongirl--you should read it! It is wonderful!
Mansfield Park is a new favorite of mine too, Fanny is so so sweet and Henry Crawford is so vexing!
You found some love quotes and you're right they are popular ones too!
I also wanted to let you know that the first quote ("Silly things do cease to be silly...") is actually from Jane Austen's Emma, Chapter 26. It's a great quote though! :)
Whoa! Very strange. Thanks for pointing that out, Miss Laurie! I got it from a page entitled Mansfield Park quotes....serves me right for not doing my own research! :)
I've read this more than once, seen various TV adaptations more than once. It is a superior book, though not a superior show.
For me as a reader, though there was less certainty that Fanny would marry her true love than that Elizabeth and Jane Bennet would do so, there was certainty in the story, but I wanted to fight that certainty. I realized that neither the heroine nor the hero could marry persons who were so unlikeminded. However as a reader, I also had a problem with the fact that Fanny annd Edmund were first cousins. This feeling pushed me toward the hope that the Crawfords would change, essentially, that is share Fanny and Edmund's faith.
Thank you for this post, Rachel! As always, it's joy to be here.
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