Jane Austen Quotes

I leave it to be settled, by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.

Dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled.

There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those two young men. One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it.

I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.

The worst crimes; are the crimes of the heart

One likes to hear what is to be going on, to be au fair with the newest modes of being trifling and silly.

To be so bent on Marriage - to pursue a man merely for the sake of situation - is a sort of thing that shocks me; I cannot understand it. Poverty is a great Evil, but to a woman of Education and feeling it ought not, it cannot be the greatest. I would rather be a teacher at a school (and I can think of nothing worse) than marry a man I did not like.

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.

She was not often invited to join in the conversation of the others, nor did she desire it. Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.

We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the eclat of a proverb.

... 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.

I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him.

Where the waters do agree, it is quite wonderful the relief they give.

Teach us almighty father, to consider this solemn truth, as we should do, that we may feel the importance of every day, and every hour as it passes.

Yes," replied Darcy, who could contain himself no longer, "but that was when I first knew her; for it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance.

I certainly have not the talent which some people possess," said Darcy, "of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.

A lady, without a family, was the very best preserver of furniture in the world.

It was for the sake of what had been, rather than what was.

To be sure you know no actual good of me, but nobody thinks of that when they fall in love.

She is probably by this time as tired of me, as I am of her; but as she is too Polite and I am too civil to say so, our letters are still as frequent and affectionate as ever, and our Attachment as firm and sincere as when it first commenced.

He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and every body hoped that he would never come there again.

I understand Crawford paid you a visit?" "Yes." "And was he attentive?" "Yes, very." "And has your heart changed towards him?" "Yes. Several times. I have - I find that I - I find that-" "Shh. Surely you and I are beyond speaking when words are clearly not enough.... I missed you." "And I you.

What one means one day, you know, one may not mean the next. Circumstances change, opinions alter.

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

I begin already to weigh my words and sentences more than I did, and am looking about for a sentiment, an illustration, or a metaphor in every corner of the room. Could my Ideas flow as fast as the rain in the Storecloset it would be charming.

If gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Elizabeth's change of sentiment will be neither improbable nor faulty. But if otherwise--if regard springing from such sources is unreasonable or unnatural, in comparison of what is so often described as arising on a first interview with its object, and even before two words have been exchanged, nothing can be said in her defence, except that she had given somewhat of a trial to the latter method in her partiality for Wickham, and that its ill success might, perhaps, authorise her to seek the other less interesting mode of attachment.

Without music, life would be a blank to me.

But remember that the pain of parting from friends will be felt by everybody at times, whatever be their education or state. Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience; or give it a more fascinating name: call it hope.

Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths.

Grant us peace, Almighty Father, so to pray as to deserve to be heard.

In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.

Everything nourishes what is strong already

it is a shocking trick for a young person to be always lolling upon a sofa.

Now they were as strangers; nay worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted.

A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her.

It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does. And men take care that they should.

She is loveliness itself.

I can safely say, that the happiest part of my life has been spent on board a ship.

Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn-that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness-that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling.

My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them──by which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents.

Had Elizabeth been able to encounter his eye, she might have seen how well the expression of heartfelt delight, diffused over his face, became him; but, though she could not look, she could listen, and he told her of feelings, which, in proving of what importance she was to him, made his affection every moment more valuable.

A mother would have been always present. A mother would have been a constant friend; her influence would have been beyond all other.

Where shall we see a better daughter, or a kinder sister, or a truer friend?

She was feeling, thinking, trembling about everything; agitated, happy, miserable, infinitely obliged, absolutely angry.

I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.

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.

Nobody minds having what is too good for them.

Too many cooks spoil the broth