Persuasion Quotes

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...I have loved none but you.”

“There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison”

“Time will explain.”

“One man’s ways may be as good as another’s, but we all like our own best.”

“A man does not recover from such devotion of the heart to such a woman! He ought not; he does not.”

“My idea of good company...is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.′ ‘You are mistaken,’ said he gently, ‘that is not good company, that is the best.”

“...when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.”

“She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she was not wise yet.”

When any two young people take it into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance to carry their point, be they ever so poor, or ever so imprudent, or ever so little likely to be necessary to each other’s ultimate comfort.

Let us never underestimate the power of a well-written letter.

Thus much indeed he was obliged to acknowledge – that he had been constant unconsciously, nay unintentionally; that he had meant to forget her, and believed it to be done. He had imagined himself indifferent, when he had only been angry; and he had been unjust to her merits, because he had been a sufferer from them.

I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman’s inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman’s fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.

Nor could she help feeling, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.

How quick come the reasons for approving what we like.

Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death.

If there is any thing disagreeable going on, men are always sure to get out of it.

I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago.

If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember that it was to persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk. When I yielded, I thought it was to duty; but no duty could be called in aid here. In marrying a man indifferent to me, all risk would have been incurred and all duty violated.

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 all our lives.

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!

Now they were as strangers; worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted.

Anne hoped she had outlived the age of blushing; but the age of emotion she certainly had not.

She understood him. He could not forgive her,-but he could not be unfeeling. Though condemning her for the past, and considering it with high and unjest resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer, without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder of former sentiment; it was an impuse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart, which she could not contemplate without emotions so compounded of pleasure and pain, that she knew not which prevailed.

“The last few hours were certainly very painful,” replied Anne: “but when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure. One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering-”

She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.

I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve.

“For no matter what we achieve, if we don’t spend the vast majority of our time with people we love and respect, we cannot possibly have a great life.”

“Expending energy trying to motivate people is largely a waste of time… if you have the right people on the bus, they will be self-motivated.”

For one daughter, his eldest, he would really have given up any thing, which he had not been very much tempted to do.

Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness of character, which must have placed her high with any people of real understanding, was nobody with either father or sister;

and that the true dignity of Sir Walter Elliot will be very far from lessened in the eyes of sensible people, by acting like a man of principle.

There will be nothing singular in his case; and it is singularity which often makes the worst part of our suffering, as it always does of our conduct.

″...consequence has its tax”

“There is hardly any personal defect,” replied Anne, “which an agreeable manner might not gradually reconcile one to.”

“I have no scruple of observing to you, how nonsensical some persons are about their place, because all the world knows how easy and indifferent you are about it; but I wish anybody could give Mary a hint that it would be a great deal better if she were not so very tenacious, especially if she would not be always putting herself forward to take place of mamma. Nobody doubts her right to have precedence of mamma, but it would be more becoming in her not to be always insisting on it. It is not that mamma cares about it the least in the world, but I know it is taken notice of by many persons.”

How was Anne to set all these matters to rights? She could do little more than listen patiently, soften every grievance, and excuse each to the other; give them all hints of the forbearance necessary between such near neighbours, and make those hints broadest which were meant for her sister’s benefit.

She knew that when she played she was giving pleasure only to herself; but this was no new sensation. Excepting one short period of her life, she had never, since the age of fourteen, never since the loss of her dear mother, known the happiness of being listened to, or encouraged by any just appreciation or real taste.

“I never could get over the habit of speaking my mind.”

how perfectly delighted they were with him, how much handsomer, how infinitely more agreeable they thought him than any individual among their male acquaintance, who had been at all a favourite before.

A sick child is always the mother’s property: her own feelings generally make it so.”

You, who have not a mother’s feelings, are a great deal the properest person.

“Phoo! phoo!” cried the Admiral, “what stuff these young fellows talk! Never was a better sloop than the Asp in her day. For an old built sloop, you would not see her equal. Lucky fellow to get her! He knows there must have been twenty better men than himself applying for her at the same time. Lucky fellow to get anything so soon, with no more interest than his.”

“I knew that we should either go to the bottom together, or that she would be the making of me;”

“There was a momentary expression in Captain Wentworth’s face at this speech, a certain glance of his bright eye, and curl of his handsome mouth, which convinced Anne, that instead of sharing in Mrs Musgrove’s kind wishes, as to her son, he had probably been at some pains to get rid of him;”

“doing it with so much sympathy and natural grace, as shewed the kindest consideration for all that was real and unabsurd in the parent’s feelings.”

Mrs Musgrove was of a comfortable, substantial size, infinitely more fitted by nature to express good cheer and good humour, than tenderness and sentiment; and while the agitations of Anne’ s slender form, and pensive face, may be considered as very completely screened, Captain Wentworth should be allowed some credit for the self-command with which he attended to her large fat sighings over the destiny of a son, whom alive nobody had cared for.

I do not think any young woman has a right to make a choice that may be disagreeable and inconvenient to the principal part of her family, and be giving bad connections to those who have not been used to them.

“I do not think anybody has a right to complain who remain in good circumstances: but I suppose I must be contented.”

“Good for nothing old women are the greatest trouble to any place.”

“If I loved a man, as she loves the Admiral, I would always be with him, nothing should ever separate us, and I would rather be overturned by him, than driven safely by anybody else.”

Woe betide him, and her too, when it comes to things of consequence, when they are placed in circumstances requiring fortitude and strength of mind, if she have not resolution enough to resist idle interference in such a trifle as this.

It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character, that no influence over it can be depended on.

You are never sure of a good impression being durable; everybody may sway it.

This nut, while so many of his brethren have fallen and been trodden under foot, is still in possession of all the happiness that a hazel nut can be supposed capable of.

Anne found herself by this time growing so much more hardened to being in Captain Wentworth’s company than she had at first imagined could ever be, that the sitting down to the same table with him now, and the interchange of the common civilities attending on it (they never got beyond), was become a mere nothing.

“Oh! yes,—I am quite convinced that, with very few exceptions, the sea-air always does good.

“Is there no one to help me?”

The usefulness of her staying! She who had not been able to remain in Louisa’ s room, or to look at her, without sufferings which made her worse than helpless!

″...but if Anne will stay, no one so proper, so capable as Anne.”

“These rooms ought to belong only to us. Oh, how fallen in their destination! How unworthily occupied! An ancient family to be so driven away! Strangers filling their place!”

And take it altogether, now that we have been into most of the houses hereabouts and can judge, there is not one that we like better than this.

“Elegance, sweetness, beauty. Oh! there was no end of Miss Elliot’s charms.”

“Any acquaintance of Anne’s will always be welcome to me,”

“I should not have supposed that my opinion of any one could have admitted of such difference of conjecture, steady and matter of fact as I may call myself.”

“And when he does, Mary, you may depend upon hearing my opinion; but I am determined not to judge him beforehand.”

“after all she had gone through, nothing was so likely to do her good as a little quiet cheerfulness at home”

“My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.”

″‘You are mistaken,’ said he gently, ‘that is not good company; that is the best. Good company requires only birth, education, and manners, and with regard to education is not very nice. Birth and good manners are essential; but a little learning is by no means a dangerous thing in good company; on the contrary, it will do very well.‘”

“Well,” said Anne, “I certainly am proud, too proud to enjoy a welcome which depends so entirely upon place.”

“You talk of being proud; I am called proud, I know, and I shall not wish to believe myself otherwise; for our pride, if investigated, would have the same object, I have no doubt, though the kind may seem a little different.

“We must feel that every addition to your father’s society, among his equals or superiors, may be of use in diverting his thoughts from those who are beneath him.”

Everybody’s heart is open, you know, when they have recently escaped from severe pain, or are recovering the blessing of health,

Women of that class have great opportunities, and if they are intelligent may be well worth listening to.

What instances must pass before them of ardent, disinterested, self-denying attachment, of heroism, fortitude, patience, resignation: of all the conflicts and all the sacrifices that ennoble us most.

A sick chamber may often furnish the worth of volumes.”

Everything that revolts other people, low company, paltry rooms, foul air, disgusting associations are inviting to you.

“I own that to be able to regard you as the future mistress of Kellynch, the future Lady Elliot, to look forward and see you occupying your dear mother’s place, succeeding to all her rights, and all her popularity, as well as to all her virtues, would be the highest possible gratification to me.

Captain Benwick and Louisa Musgrove! It was almost too wonderful for belief, and it was with the greatest effort that she could remain in the room, preserve an air of calmness, and answer the common questions of the moment.

“With all my soul I wish them happy, and rejoice over every circumstance in favour of it.”

He is a clever man, a reading man; and I confess, that I do consider his attaching himself to her with some surprise.

“One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering, which was by no means the case at Lyme.”

but it would be an insult to the nature of Anne’s felicity, to draw any comparison between it and her sister’s; the origin of one all selfish vanity, of the other all generous attachment.

“Her happiness was from within.”

How, in all the peculiar disadvantages of their respective situations, would he ever learn of her real sentiments?

“Yes, I do. Your countenance perfectly informs me that you were in company last night with the person whom you think the most agreeable in the world, the person who interests you at this present time more than all the rest of the world put together.”

“Even the smooth surface of family-union seems worth preserving, though there may be nothing durable beneath.”

“Mr Elliot is a man without heart or conscience; a designing, wary, cold-blooded being, who thinks only of himself;”

“Oh! he is black at heart, hollow and black!”

Give me joy: I have got rid of Sir Walter and Miss. They are gone back to Kellynch, and almost made me swear to visit them this summer; but my first visit to Kellynch will be with a surveyor, to tell me how to bring it with best advantage to the hammer.

I have always wanted some other motive for his conduct than appeared.

“My dear,” was Mrs Smith’s reply, “there was nothing else to be done. I considered your marrying him as certain, though he might not yet have made the offer, and I could no more speak the truth of him, than if he had been your husband. My heart bled for you, as I talked of happiness; and yet he is sensible, he is agreeable, and with such a woman as you, it was not absolutely hopeless. He was very unkind to his first wife. They were wretched together. But she was too ignorant and giddy for respect, and he had never loved her. I was willing to hope that you must fare better.”

I have a great value for Benwick; and when one can but get him to talk, he has plenty to say.

“I would rather have young people settle on a small income at once, and have to struggle with a few difficulties together, than be involved in a long engagement.”

Anne felt its application to herself, felt it in a nervous thrill all over her; and at the same moment that her eyes instinctively glanced towards the distant table, Captain Wentworth’s pen ceased to move, his head was raised, pausing, listening, and he turned round the next instant to give a look, one quick, conscious look at her.

“Yes. We certainly do not forget you as soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us. You are forced on exertion. You have always a profession, pursuits, business of some sort or other, to take you back into the world immediately, and continual occupation and change soon weaken impressions.”

“No, no, it is not man’s nature. I will not allow it to be more man’s nature than woman’s to be inconstant and forget those they do love, or have loved.

“Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman’s fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.”

“Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. 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. I will not allow books to prove anything.”

If I could explain to you all this, and all that a man can bear and do, and glories to do, for the sake of these treasures of his existence! I speak, you know, only of such men as have hearts!”

No, I believe you capable of everything great and good in your married lives.

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever.”

I have loved none but you.

If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember that it was to persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk.

It was, perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides;