“I know you do; and it is that which makes the wonder. With your good sense, to be so honestly blind to the follies and nonsense of others! Affectation of candour is common enough—one meets with it everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design—to take the good of everybody's character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad—belongs to you alone. And so you like this man's sisters, too, do you? Their manners are not equal to his.”

Jane Austen

Jane Austen - “I know you do; and it is that which makes...” 1

Similar quotes

“Affectation of candour is common enough—one meets with it everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design—to take the good of everybody's character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad—belongs to you alone.”

Jane Austen
Read more

“I’ll never be good enough for you, I know that. But I’m no good without you, and if that makes me a selfish bastard for wanting you as badly as I do then so be it because I can’t live a life that doesn’t have you in it.”

Samantha Towle
Read more

“Upon my word, Emma, to hear you abusing the reason you have, is almost enough to make me think so too. Better be without sense than misapply it as you do.”

Jane Austen
Read more

“What do you mean? (Fatima)There’s so much evil out there to protect him and others from. How can I fight for that and keep him safe simultaneously? (Stryder)I still do not understand, milord. You are but one man with one sword to fight all the world. This is indeed a good thing. But when you are gone so too is your sword. So it seems to me that while it is important to fight the bad man, it is just as equally important to raise a good one. Raising more than one would be even better. That way when you are gone, you will leave a whole generation behind who will fight for what is right. (Fatima)”

Kinley MacGregor
Read more

“Emma laughed, and replied: "But I had the assistance of all your endeavours to counteract the indulgence of other people. I doubt whether my own sense would have corrected me without it.""Do you?—I have no doubt. Nature gave you understanding:—Miss Taylor gave you principles. You must have done well. My interference was quite as likely to do harm as good. It was very natural for you to say, what right has he to lecture me?—and I am afraid very natural for you to feel that it was done in a disagreeable manner. I do not believe I did you any good. The good was all to myself, by making you an object of the tenderest affection to me. I could not think about you so much without doating on you, faults and all; and by dint of fancying so many errors, have been in love with you ever since you were thirteen at least. [...] "How often, when you were a girl, have you said to me, with one of your saucy looks—'Mr. Knightley, I am going to do so-and-so; papa says I may, or I have Miss Taylor's leave'—something which, you knew, I did not approve. In such cases my interference was giving you two bad feelings instead of one.""What an amiable creature I was!—No wonder you should hold my speeches in such affectionate remembrance.”

Jane Austen
Read more