# Quote — Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

> Mrs. Morland was a very good woman, and wished to see her children everything they ought to be; but her time was so much occupied in lying–in and teaching the little ones, that her elder daughters were inevitably left to shift for themselves; and it was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had by nature nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, base ball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of fourteen, to books — or at least books of information — for, provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she had never any objection to books at all.

- Author: [Jane Austen](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-austen.md)
- Book: [Northanger Abbey](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-austen/northanger-abbey.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Northanger_Abbey#Quotes) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-austen/northanger-abbey/mrs-morland-was

## More from this book

> It is probable that she will neither love so well, nor flirt so well, as she might do either singly., p. 302, 2013

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-austen/northanger-abbey/it-is-probable.md)

> A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-austen/northanger-abbey/a-woman-especially.md)

> But historians are not accountable for the difficulty of learning to read; and even you yourself, who do not altogether seem particularly friendly to very severe, very intense application, may perhaps be brought to acknowledge that it is very well worth while to be tormented for two or three years of one's life, for the sake of being able to read all the rest of it., p. 228, 2013

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-austen/northanger-abbey/but-historians-are.md)