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 AustenRead
Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the unrecognized struggles of individuals and the idea that silence in suffering often leads to a lack of empathy from others.
In this quote, Jane Austen emphasizes that personal suffering is often invisible to others, and that those who endure pain without expressing it may find themselves without sympathy or compassion from the outside world. It speaks to the human condition of isolation in our struggles and the societal tendency to overlook those who do not vocalize their experiences, suggesting that expressing pain can evoke empathy, while silence can lead to neglect.
Themes
SufferingEmpathySilencePainExpression
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about mental health awareness to highlight the importance of recognizing unspoken struggles.
More from Jane Austen
All quotes βNobody could catch cold by the sea; nobody wanted appetite by the sea; nobody wanted spirits; nobody wanted strength. Sea air was healing, softening, relaxing - fortifying and bracing - seemingly just as was wanted - sometimes one, sometimes the other. If the sea breeze failed, the seabath was the certain corrective; and where bathing disagreed, the sea air alone was evidently designed by nature for the cure.
Jane AustenRead
He certainly is very agreeable, and I give you leave to like him. You have liked many a stupider person.
Jane AustenRead
A person who is knowingly bent on bad behavior, gets upset when better behavior is expected of them.
Jane AustenRead
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.
Jane AustenRead
She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she was not wise yet.
Jane AustenRead
Similar quotes
Your silence exists as does my self gathering. But so does the almost absolute silence of the world's dawning. In such suspension, before every utterance on earth, there is a cloud, an almost immobile air. The plants already breathe, while we still ask ourselves how to speak to each other, without taking breath away from them.
Luce IrigarayRead
In the ancient world individuals have sold themselves as slaves, in order to eat. So in society. Here is a witch-doctor who can save us from the sorcerers - a war-lord who can save us from the barbarians - a Church that can save us from Hell. Give them what they ask, give ourselves to them bound and blindfold, if only they will! Perhaps the terrible bargain will be made again. We cannot blame men for making it. We can hardly wish them not to. Yet we can hardly bear that they should.
C. S. LewisRead
We do not quite say that the new is more valuable because it fits in; but its fitting in is a test of its value - a test, it is true, which can only be slowly and cautiously applied, for we are none of us infallible judges of conformity.
T. S. EliotRead
He who cannot command himself should obey. And many can command themselves, but much is still lacking before they can obey themselves.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Non-violence is not a quality to be evolved or expressed to order. It is an inward growth depending for sustenance upon intense individual effort.
Mahatma GandhiRead
But you can't start. Only a baby can start. You and me - why, we're all that's been. The anger of a moment, the thousand pictures, that's us. This land, this red land, is us; and the flood years and the dust years and the drought years are us. We can't start again.
John SteinbeckRead