Real solemn history, I cannot be interested in.... The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars and pestilences in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all.

“I often think,” said she, “that there is nothing so bad as parting with one's friends. One seems so forlorn without them.”

If I could not be persuaded into doing what I thought wrong, I never will be tricked into it.

I am not romantic, you know; I never was.

One cannot fix one's eyes on the commonest natural production without finding food for a rambling fancy.

Then it would not be so strong a sense. If it failed to produce equal exertion, it could not be an equal conviction.

Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate. She was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her conduct, her most favourite maxims.