Patience Pennywood - Words of Wisdom in the Time of Jane Austen: A Collection of Georgian and Regency Era Maxims

W e are often, by superficial accomplishments, and accidental endearments, induced to love those whom we cannot esteem; we are sometimes, by great abilities, and incontestable evidences of virtue, compelled to esteem those whom we cannot love. Samuel Johnson The Rambler, 1750 L ove extracts poison out of everything it sees. The Ladies Magazine, 1801 T he ancients have very well described love by the figure of a beautiful child: he is pleased with childish games, he is tender and delicate, incapable to hurt, charmed with trifles, all his designs terminate in pleasures, but those pleasures are sweet and innocent. The Ladies Magazine, 1774 L ove, like many other things, has its contraries; it dies away, and it lives forever. Fulke Greville Maxims, Characters and Reflections, 1768 S pare the lover without flattering his passion: to make the pangs of love the butt of ridicule is unwise and harsh soothing meekness and wisdom subdue in else unconquerable things. M. M.

Arnold Classic Cullings and Fugitive Gatherings, 1831 L ove which is not founded on esteem can neither be real nor permanent: it is only the effect of a wanton caprice, and is more likely to terminate in disgust than friendship. Pure love, like pure gold, cannot subsist without an alloy, which, though it debases the ideal value, enhances the true one, by making them both love and gold more fixed and fit for use. The love which does not begin in friendship will not end there. Friendship is independent, it requires no mixture, no alloy: its purity, contrary to the nature of gold, is its strength and stability; nor is it without its elevations and transports: the mutual contemplation of truth, and the communication of knowledge being higher enjoyments than mortal sense is capable of. The Ladies Magazine, 1774 L ove is a sentiment that can elevate as well as soften the soul, and incite it to the most virtuous actions. It is the surest preservative against every vicious or mean action; as we are never in love but with objects that appear amiable, and naturally endeavor to merit that return to our passions we are solicitous to receive.

The Ladies Magazine, 1775 A bsence to lovers, like wind to the fire, extinguishes a small flame, but increases a great one. Richard and Elizabeth Griffith A Series of Genuine Letters Between Henry and Frances, 1757 T he moment a woman is weak enough to promise, she sets the heart of her lover at rest: the chase, and, of consequence, the pleasure, is at an end; and he has nothing to do, but to seek a new object, and begin the pursuit over again. Frances Brooke The History of Lady Julia Mandeville, 1763 C asual disagreements have been considered as springs that give new force to love. Yet as a spring too frequently, or too forcibly used, remains at the place to which it is drawn back, instead of flying forwards; so lovers will find that disagreements, if they are too frequent, will at length lose their elasticity, and impel to love no more. Fulke Greville Maxims, Characters and Reflections, 1768 L overs are more powerfully restrained from indulging their passions by the fear of falling in each other's esteem than by all other considerations, either human or divine. The Ladies Magazine, 1793 T he general word passion is no bad one to express the sensations of most people who talk of being in love; for such love produces hatred, rage, jealousy, and fondness, each in their several turns, in the space of four and twenty hours.