Janice Hadlow > Quotes

“Our happiness depends on ourselves”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“Sometimes the very best stuff can seem quite plain, until one examines it closely. It is only then that one sees its true quality.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“And anyway, in our house, no-one is obliged to sparkle. Which, I find, makes it far more likely that they might.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“...in truth, there is no state that better demonstrates real firmness of affection than the ability to remain quietly comfortable together without conversation.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“Watching what happens isn’t the same as being part of it.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“It is my situation I dislike, not myself.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“There are times when happiness must be fought for, if we are to have any chance at all of achieving it.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“It’s hard to persuade anyone, especially a man, that your regard is worth having if you have none for yourself.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“But it is often difficult for us to recognise what virtue looks like because we so readily confuse it with pleasure. Pleasure can deliver is enjoyment - the feelings we derive from good food, good conversations, the contemplation of beauty - but these things do not last. Enjoyments are transient, but true happiness endures. That is its distinguishing quality.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“It might seem an unromantic circumstance; but in truth, there is no state that better demonstrates real firmness of affection than the ability to remain quietly comfortable together without conversation.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“The most important habit to conquer was the habit of misery itself. Nothing was so inimical to happiness as the settled conviction it was not for her. It was a conviction that ran very deep in her; but she knew she must fight to rise above it.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“She had learnt from Mrs. Bennet that without beauty no real and lasting happiness was attainable. It never occurred to her to question what she’d been taught.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“It is better to accept what I can do than to yearn hopelessly after what I cannot. “Know thyself”, as the Greeks tell us.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“She had gradually discovered that the best response to glorious, unexpected happiness was not to seek explanation for its appearance but simply to embrace it and be glad.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“for where there is no willingness to make an effort, there is usually little likelihood of success.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“They did not consider happiness a matter of chance or destiny. Instead they did everything in their power to cultivate it, prizing generosity over petulance, preferring kindness to umbrage, and and always encouraging laughter rather than complaint.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“Enjoyments are transient, but true happiness endures. That is its distinguishing quality.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“I see plainly enough that you don’t like to make a fuss about dress—that you dislike having attention drawn to you. But there are times when the best way to ensure you are not remarkable is to conform to the expectations of those around you.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“That is the power of poetry,” he said simply. “It allows us to imagine ourselves anew, if we will permit it to do so. It reveals to us the hidden wishes of our hearts.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“True beauty, he declared, had nothing to do with outward appearance. It came from within, the product of a well-regulated mind and a properly formed understanding. These qualities, and not a pretty face, are the real measure of a woman’s worth.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“Mary looked shyly at her reflection. She would not go as far as handsome, but she thought she would not stand out as awkward or strange; and that was enough for her.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“Her chief purpose in life appeared to be the avoidance of notice. Her heart contracted with pain; it was almost too much to bear.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“If she wished to act rightly, she must conquer her passions. Her heart had failed her, and now her intellect must take its place. Her reason, and not her feelings, must in future be relied upon to tell her what to do. She must think more and feel less. That way she should do no more damage, either to herself or others.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“she had observed that some people were miserable in the midst of prosperity, while others remained cheerful in even the harshest of conditions.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“It seems to me that, in the real world, it is impossible to be guided solely by either the impulses of feeling or my rational calculation. Neither is likely to make us happy. In my own view, we have need of them both. Wisdom, I suppose, lies in knowing when to call upon one and when on the other.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“As the evening went on, Mary felt herself steadily diminished by this knowledge, imagining herself fading from view, minute by minute, hour by hour, until she felt as though she had disappeared altogether, leaving nothing behind to remind anyone that she had ever been there at all.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“Then It occurred to me that I was coming at it in quite the wrong way. I was trying to think it into submission. I began to fear I might be about to destroy the very thing I wanted to understand. It struck me that a poem was perhaps too fragile an object to bear the weight of too much rational examination”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“In our house, no-one is obliged to sparkle. Which, I find, makes it far more likely that they might.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister

“In a world with fewer diversions, the arrival of a letter was an event to be shared and celebrated or enjoyed as a private pleasure. In most households, there simply could not be too many of them. Even by these formidable”
― Janice Hadlow, A Royal Experiment: The Private Life of King George III

“Our interventions are only welcome if they are agreeable,” she murmured, “and by that, I mean that they reflect what everyone else thinks and are delivered with a most submissive smile.”
― Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister