# Quote — Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

> You think me foolish to call instruction a torment, but if you had been as much used as myself to hear poor little children first learning their letters and then learning to spell, if you had ever seen how stupid they can be for a whole morning together, and how tired my poor mother is at the end of it, as I am in the habit of seeing almost every day of my life at home, you would allow that to torment and to instruct might sometimes be used as synonimous words., p. 228, 2013

- 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#Chapter_14) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-austen/northanger-abbey/you-think-me-foolish

## 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)