“Her (Jane Austen) moral message is infused with ideological insistence on the merits of good conduct, good manners, sound reason, and marriage as an admirable social institution. She never scorns love, but balances it often . . . with a firm advocacy of . . . the qualities of self-knowledge, self-discipline, and practicality.”

“Pure practical reason, even with a good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality.”

“To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self disciplined is to follow in a better way.”

“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but of power and of love and of calm and well balanced mind and discipline and self-control.”

“All my life I have placed great store in civility and good manners, practices I find scarce among the often hard-edged, badly socialized scientists with whom I associate. Tone of voice means a great deal to me in the course of debate. I despise the arrogance and doting self-regard so frequently found among the very bright.”

“she liked to laugh that a young widow who'd just come into a good fortune must be, to misquote Jane Austen, in want of a husband.”