Jane Austen Quotes

An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.

I am excessively diverted.

One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.

Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection.

The longer they were together the more doubtful seemed the nature of his regard, and sometimes for a few painful minutes she believed it to be no more than friendship

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

Angry people are not always wise.

When money is once parted with, it can never return.

A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.

Brandon is just the kind of man whom every body speaks well of, and nobody cares about; whom all are delighted to see, and nobody remembers to talk to.

And what am I to do on the occasion? -- It seems an hopeless business.

Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?

A persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness as a very resolute character.

Vanity, not love, has been my folly.

She looked back as well as she could; but it was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she supposed and made everything bend to it.

Mrs. Jennings was a widow, with an ample jointure. She had only two daughters, both of whom she had lived to see respectably married, and she had now therefore nothing to do but to marry all the rest of the world.

I am determined that only the deepest love will induce me into matrimony. So... I shall end an old maid, and teach your ten children to embroider cushions and play their instruments very ill.

An annuity is a very serious business.

If I am wrong, I am doing what I believe to the right.

Where youth and diffidence are united, it requires uncommon steadiness of reason to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl in the world.

Fraternal love, sometimes almost every thing, is at others worse than nothing.

There was no being displeased with such an encourager, for his admiration made him discern a likeness before it was possible.

I do not know whether it ought to be so, but certainly silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.

What a shame, for I dearly love to laugh.

Time will explain.

I read it [history] a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all — it is very tiresome: and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention.

One man's ways may be as good as another's, but we all like our own best.

I can always live by my pen.

If you were to give me forty such men, I never could be so happy as you. Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your happiness. No, no, let me shift for myself; and, perhaps, if I have very good luck, I may meet with another Mr. Collins in time.

His feelings are warm, but I can imagine them rather changeable.

She was one of those, who, having, once begun, would be always in love.

As a brother, a landlord, a master, she considered how many people's happiness were in his guardianship! -- How much of pleasure or pain it was in his power to bestow! -- How much of good or evil must be done by him!

Marry me. Marry me, my wonderful, darling friend.

Everybody's heart is open, you know, when they have recently escaped from severe pain, or are recovering the blessing of health.

Is not poetry the food of love?

The most incomprehensible thing in the world to a man, is a woman who rejects his offer of marriage!

She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she was not wise yet.

[I]t is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible.

A man . . . must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks people to leave their own fireside, and encounter such a day as this, for the sake of coming to see him. He must think himself a most agreeable fellow.

A single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as any body else.

It would be most right, and most wise, and, therefore must involve least suffering.

Men were put into the world to teach women the law of compromise.

Where people are really attached, poverty itself is wealth.

I walk: I prefer walking.

There seemed a gulf impassable between them.

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.

Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?" Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be entirely silent for half an hour together, and yet for the advantage of some, conversation ought to be so arranged as that they may have the trouble of saying as little as possible.

When I fall in love, it will be forever.