Quotes by Jane Austen

At my time of life opinions are tolerably fixed. It is not likely that I should now see or hear any thing to change them.

There was a kind of cold-hearted selfishness on both sides, which mutually attracted them; and they sympathized with each other in an insipid propriety of demeanor, and a general want of understanding.

An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged; no harm can be done.

I am greatly pleased with your account of Fanny; I found her in the summer just as you describe, almost another sister, I could not have supposed that a niece would ever have been so much to me. She is quite after one's own heart.

Where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given.

A woman never looks better than on horseback.

But angry people are not always wise.

If there is any thing disagreeable going on, men are always sure to get out of it.

One cannot have too large a party. A large party secures its own amusement.

Children of the same family; the same blood; with the same first associations and habits; have some means of enjoyment in their power; which no subsequent connections can supply.

We do not look in our great cities for our best moralit.

Friendship is really the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.

I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me that trouble of liking them.

A scheme of which every part promises delight, can never be successful; and general disappointment is only warded off by the defense of some little peculiar vexation.

This indulgence, though not more than Catherine had hoped for, completed her conviction of being favored beyond every other human creature, in friends and fortune, circumstance and chance. Everything seemed to cooperate for her advantage.

I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any.

With such a worshipping wife, it was hardly possible that any natural defects in it should not be increased. The extreme sweetness of her temper must hurt his.

It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.

Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable.

It is singularity which often makes the worst part of our suffering, as it always does of our conduct.

I think him every thing that is worthy and amiable.

I am all astonishment.

Run mad as often as you choose but do not faint.

It's a truth universally acknowledged.

Gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough, to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection.

The wisest and the best of men, nay, the wisest and best of their actions, may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke.

But to appear happy when I am so miserable -- Oh! who can require it?

Catherine had never wanted comfort more, and Henry looked as if he was aware of it.

But he recommended the books which charmed her leisure hours, he encouraged her taste, and corrected her judgment; he made reading useful by talking to her of what she read, and heightened its attraction by judicious praise.

What harm could there be in returning smile for smile and in allowing the most charming man she had ever met to conquer the few remaining corners of her heart where common sense retained a last fleeting hold?

Give me but a little cheerful company, let me only have the company of the people I love, let me only be where I like and with whom I like, and the devil may take the rest, say I.

Pray, my dear aunt, what is the difference in matrimonial affairs, between the mercenary and the prudent motive? Where does discretion end, and avarice begin?

But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days.

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?

She denied none of it aloud, and agreed to none of it in private.

Fine dancing, I believe like virtue, must be its own reward. Those who are standing by are usually thinking of something very different.

Emma had no opportunity of speaking to Mr. Knightley till after supper; but, when they were all in the ballroom again, her eyes invited him irresistibly to come to her and be thanked.

Here are officers enough in Meryton to disappoint all the young ladies in the country.

To her own heart it was a delightful affair, to her imagination it was even a ridiculous one, but to her reason, her judgment, it was completely a puzzle.

I come here with no expectations, only to profess, now that I am at liberty to do so, that my heart is and always will be...yours.

I should wish to see them very good friends, and would, on no account, authorize in my girls the smallest degree of arrogance towards their relations; but still they cannot be equals.

I am worn out with civility.

You have gained a new source of enjoyment, and it is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible.

I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed!

Where the wound had been given, there must the cure be found, if any where.

His departure gave Catherine the first experimental conviction that a loss may be sometimes a gain.

Man only can be aware of the insensibility of man towards a new gown.

The past, present, and future, were all equally in gloom.

It sometimes is a disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection from the object of it, she may loose the opportunity of fixing him.

You want nothing, but patience or give it a more fascinating name. Call it hope.

I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.

There was a great deal of good sense in all this; but there are some situations of the human mind in which good sense has very little power.

General benevolence, but not general friendship, make a man what he ought to be.

Every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason.

Incline us oh God! to think humbly of ourselves, to be severe only in the examination of our own conduct, to consider our fellow-creatures with kindness, and to judge of all they say and do with that charity which we would desire from them ourselves.

Pride has often been his best friend. It has connected him nearer with virtue than any other feeling.

What did she say? Just what she ought, of course. A lady always does.

Oh! Do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.

She is loveliness itself.

That would be the greatest misfortune of all! -- To find a man agreeable whom one is determined to hate! -- Do not wish me such an evil.

We met Dr. Hall in such deep mourning that either his mother, his wife, or himself must be dead.

No: the years which had destroyed her youth and bloom had only given him a more glowing, manly, open look, in no respect lessening his personal advantages. She had seen the same Frederick Wentworth.

Every body has their taste in noises as well as other matters; and sounds are quite innoxious, or most distressing, by their sort rather than their quantity.

Lady Middleton resigned herself... Contenting herself with merely giving her husband a gentle reprimand on the subject, five or six times every day.

There had been moments when she felt he had almost forgiven her. She would always remember those moments.

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.

I wish I might take this for a compliment; but to be so easily seen through I am afraid is pitiful.

The post office has a great charm at one point of our lives. When you have lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going through the rain for.

It was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now.

You shall not, for the sake
of one individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity.

It is very difficult for the prosperous to be humble.

And you are never to stir out of doors till you can prove that you have spent ten minutes of every day in a rational manner.

With men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please, every feature works.

Ah! There is nothing like staying at home, for real comfort.

You shall not, for the sake of one individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity.

You have delighted us long enough.

She knew that when she played she was giving pleasure only to herself; but this was no new sensation.

She was nothing more than a mere good-tempered, civil and obliging Young Woman; as such we could scarcely dislike her -- she was only an Object of Contempt.

Marianne was silent; it was impossible for her to say what she did not feel, however trivial the occasion.

Shyness is only the effect of a sense of inferiority in some way or other. If I could persuade myself that my manner were perfectly easy and graceful, I should not be shy.

She had spoken it; but she trembled when it was done, conscious that her words were listened to, and daring not even to try to observe their effect.

There is no disputing about taste.

I am no indiscriminate novel reader. The mere trash of the common circulating library I hold in the highest contempt.

The bells rang, and everybody smiled.

I have had to contend against the unkindness of his sister, and the insolence of his mother; and have suffered the punishment of an attachment, without enjoying its advantages.

It was a delightful visit;-perfect, in being much too short.

Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.

To take a dislike to a young man, only because he appeared to be of a different disposition from himself, was unworthy the real liberality of mind.

The worst crimes; are the crimes of the heart.

To yield readily -- easily -- to the persuasion of a friend is no merit.... To yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of either.

I trust that absolutes have gradations.

I never wish to offend, but I am so foolishly shy, that I often seem negligent, when I am only kept back by my natural awkwardness.

Undoubtedly ... there is a meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. What bears affinity to cunning is despicable.

Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.

Not very good, I am afraid. But now really, do not you think Udolpho the nicest book in the world? The nicest--by which I suppose you mean the neatest. That must depend upon the binding.

A person who is knowingly bent on bad behavior, gets upset when better behavior is expected of them.

My idea of good company, Mr. Eliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.

But she sat down, resolving within herself to draw no limits in future to the impudence of an impudent man.

Warmth and enthusiasm did captivate her still. She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.

It's been many years since I had such an exemplary vegetable.