Jane Austen Quotes

There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have

There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.

A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony

A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.

In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You

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.

The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never

The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!

I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which

I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.

If I could but know his heart, everything would become easy.. Jane Austen

If I could but know his heart, everything would become easy.

There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so

There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison

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

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

Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not

Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.

I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of

I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.. Jane Austen

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.

Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that

Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.

If a book is well written, I always find it too short.. Jane Austen

If a book is well written, I always find it too short.

She wished such words unsaid with all her heart. Jane Austen

She wished such words unsaid with all her heart

Blessed with so many resources within myself the world was not necessary to me. I could

Blessed with so many resources within myself the world was not necessary to me. I could do very well without it.

Mama, the more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall

Mama, the more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.

She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me, and I am in no humor

She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me, and I am in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.

No man is offended by another man's admiration of the woman he loves; it is the

No man is offended by another man's admiration of the woman he loves; it is the woman only who can make it a torment.

I come here with no expectations, only to profess, now that I am at liberty to

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.

There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.

Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you.

Is not general incivility the very essence of love?

Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing after all.

I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.

It is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are they the result of previous study?

And pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked.

One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.

How quick come the reasons for approving what we like.

Without music, life would be a blank to me.

...when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.

Do not give way to useless alarm; though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain.

And to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.

Every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required.

It has sunk him, I cannot say how much it has sunk him in my opinion. So unlike what a man should be!-None of that upright integrity, that strict adherence to truth and principle, that distain of trick and littleness, which a man should display in every transaction of his life.

But to live in ignorance on such a point was impossible.

My Emma, does not every thing serve to prove more and more the beauty of truth and sincerity in all our dealings with each other?

It does not come to me in quite so direct a line as that; it takes a bend or two, but nothing of consequence. The stream is as good as at first; the little rubbish it collects in the turnings is easily moved away.

Words were insufficient for the elevation of his [Mr Collins'] feelings; and he was obliged to walk about the room, while Elizabeth tried to unite civility and truth in a few short sentences.

There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do if he chooses, and that is his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and resolution. - Mr. Knightley

Angry people are not always wise.

…one half of her should not be always so much wiser than the other half…

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

I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh.

A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.

You must be the best judge of your own happiness.

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

Why not seize the pleasure at once? - How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!

She was happy, she knew she was happy, and knew she ought to be happy.

How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!

…Elizabeth, agitated and confused, rather knew that she was happy, than felt herself to be so…

…she had nothing to do but to forgive herself and be happier than ever…

But there was happiness elsewhere which no description can reach.

Happiness must preclude false indulgence and physic.

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

I was uncomfortable enough. I was very uncomfortable, I may say unhappy.

I will not talk of my own happiness,' said he, 'great as it is, for I think only of yours. Compared with you, who has the right to be happy?

She had received ideas which disposed her to be courteous and kind to all, and to pity every one, as being less happy than herself.

…for I look upon the Frasers to be about as unhappy as most other married people.

Yet some happiness must and would arise, from the very conviction, that he did suffer.

Perfect felicity is not the property of mortals, and no one has a right to expect uninterrupted happiness.

The Very first moment I beheld him, my heart was irrevocably gone.

We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him.

She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.

my good qualities are under your protection, and you are to exaggerate them as much as possible; and, in return, it belongs to me to find occasion for teasing and quarreling with you as often as may be...

Have you any other objection than your belief of my indifference?"

- Elizabeth Bennet

We must not be so ready to fancy ourselves intentionally injured. We must not expect a lively young man to be always so guarded and circumspect. It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does.

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.

I can feel no sentiment of approbation inferior to love.

no hay que desesperar de lograr aquello que deseamos, pues la asiduidad, si es constante, consigue el fin que se propone...

Te aseguro que no soy de las que quieren a medias. Mis sentimientos siempre son profundos y arraigados"...

It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy. I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples.

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.

To wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect

Every moment has its pleasures and its hope.

but a sanguine temper, though for ever expecting more good than occurs, does not always pay for its hopes by any proportionate depression. it soon flies over the present failure, and begins to hope again.

…told herself likewise not to hope. But it was too late. Hope had already entered…

I frequently observe that one pretty face would be followed by five and thirty frights.

I have been used to consider poetry as "the food of love" said Darcy.

"Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is
strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I
am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.

she thought it was the misfortune of poetry, to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly, were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly.

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

Facts or opinions which are to pass through the hands of so many, to be misconceived by folly in one, and ignorance in another, can hardly have much truth left.

Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody.

There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome."
"And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody."
"And yours," he replied with a smile, "is wilfully to misunderstand them.

A fondness for reading, properly directed, must be an education in itself.

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.

I declare, there is no enjoyment like reading.

I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! - When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.

but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.

It is only a novel... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language

How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book!

Books-oh! no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with the same
feelings."

"I am sorry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at least be
no want of subject. We may compare our different opinions.

Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.

...I will not allow books to prove any thing."
"But how shall we prove any thing?"
"We never shall.

With a book he was regardless of time.

And Marianne, who had the knack of finding her way in every house to the library, however it might be avoided by the family in general, soon procured herself a book.

The evils arising from the loss of her uncle were neither trifling nor likely to lessen; and when thought had been freely indulged, in contrasting the past and the present, the employment of mind and dissipation of unpleasant ideas which only reading could produce made her thankfully turn to a book.

Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.

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

It was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now.

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

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

... and because they were fond of reading, she fancied them satirical: perhaps without exactly knowing what it was to be satirical; but that did not signify. It was censure in common use, and easily given.

For my part, I am determined never to speak of it again to anybody. I told my sister Phillips so the other day.

It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy; - it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.

Time will explain.

Time did not compose her.

Time will generally lessen the interest of every attachment not within the daily circle.

These were reflections that required some time to soften; but time will do almost every thing…

Tempo ou oportunidade não determinam a intimidade, apenas a disposição.

Oh! what a silly Thing is Woman! How vain, how unreasonable!

There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.

The promised notification was hanging over her head. The postman's knock within the neighbourhood was beginning to bring its daily terrors -and if reading could banish the idea for even half an hour, it was something gained.

The notions of a young man of one or two and twenty,' said he, 'as to what is necessary in manners to make him quite the thing, are more absurd, I believe, than those of any other set of beings in the world. The folly of the means they often employ is only to be equalled by the folly of what they have in view.

...And if reading could banish the idea for even half an hour, it was something gained.

The progress of the friendship between Catherine and Isabella was quick as its beginning had been warm...and if a rainy morning deprived them of other enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut themselves up, to read novels together.

Marianne, who had the knack of finding her way in every house to the library, however it might be avoided by the family in general, soon procured herself a book.

And books! ...she would buy them all over and over again; she would buy up every copy, I believe, to prevent their falling into unworthy hands; and she would have every book that tells her how to admire an old twisted tree.

I am sure Lady Russell would like him. He is just Lady Russell's sort. Give him a book, and he will read all day long.'
'Yes, that he will!' exclaimed Mary tauntingly. 'He will sit poring over his book, and not know when a person speaks to him, or when one
drops ones' scissors, or anything that happens.

He considered his disposition as of the sort which must suffer heavily, uniting very strong feelings with quiet,serious, and retiring manners, and a decided taste for reading and sedentary pursuits.

To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.

…for what after all is Youth and Beauty?

You men have none of you any hearts.'
'If we have not hearts, we have eyes; and they give us torment enough.

You must really begin to harden yourself to the idea of being worth looking at.

To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.

When I look out on such a night as this, I feel as if there could be neither wickedness nor sorrow in the world; and there certainly would be less of both if the sublimity of Nature were more attended to, and people were carried more out of themselves by contemplating such a scene.

You will think me rhapsodizing; but when I am out of doors, especially when I am sitting out of doors, I am very apt to get into this sort of wondering strain. One cannot fix one's eyes on the commonest natural production without finding food for a rambling fancy.

[T]hey are much to be pitied who have not ... been given a taste for Nature in early life. They lose a great deal.

But Catherine did not know her own advantages - did not know that a good-looking girl, with an affectionate heart and a very ignorant mind, cannot fail of attracting a clever young man, unless circumstances are particularly untoward.

We are all fools in love

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.

Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want.

I pay very little regard," said Mrs. Grant, "to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person.

Miss Bingley's congratulations to her brother, on his approaching marriage, were all that was affectionate and insincere.

Luck which so often defies anticipation in matrimonial affairs, giving attraction to what is moderate rather than to what is superior.

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.

...and their marriage, instead of depriving her of one friend, secured her two.

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.

I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I have never been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.

Time, you may be sure, will make one or the other of us think differently; and, in the meanwhile, we need not talk much on the subject.

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

A woman is not to marry a man merely because she is asked, or because he is attached to her, and can write a tolerable letter.

A man would always wish to give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from; and he who can do it, where there is no doubt of her regard, must, I think, be the happiest of mortals.

Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.

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

Her family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by the resurrection of Edward, she had one again.

...And talking of the dear family party which would then be restored, of their mutual pursuits and cheerful society, as the only happiness worth a wish.

Had Elizabeth's opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could not have formed a very pleasing picture of conjugal felicity or domestic comfort.

Elinor placed all that was astonishing in this way of acting to his mother's account; and it was happy for her that he had a mother whose character was so imperfectly known to her, as to be the general excuse for every thing strange on the part of her son.

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.

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

She began to feel that she had not yet gone through all the changes of opinion and sentiment, which the progress of time and variation of circumstances occasion in this world of changes.

Oh! you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general. You never see fault in any body. All the world are good and agreeable in your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of a human being in my life."
"I would wish not to be hasty in censuring any one; but I always speak what I think.

But one never does form a just idea of anybody beforehand. One takes up a notion and runs away with it.

Emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years old. I have seen a great many lists of her drawing-up at various times of books that she meant to read regularly through - and very good lists they were - very well chosen, and very neatly arranged - sometimes alphabetically, and sometimes by some other rule.

A very narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper.

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 beg your pardon; one knows exactly what to think.

Ever since her being turned into a Churchill, she has out-Churchill'd them all in high and mighty claims.

I do not wish to avoid the walk. The distance is nothing when one has a motive.

Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first?

Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does.

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

"You are mistaken," said he gently, "that is not good company; that is the best. Good company requires only birth, education, and manners (...)

You are in a melancholy humour, and fancy that any one unlike yourself must be happy. But remember that the pain of parting from friends will be felt by every body 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.

Elizabeth could never address her without feeling that all the comfort of intimacy was over, and, though determined not to slacken as a correspondent, it was for the sake of what had been, rather than what was.

...for to be sunk, though but for an hour in your esteem is a humiliation to which I know not how to submit. -Susan

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..

On every formal visit a child ought to be of the party, by way of provision for discourse. In the present case it took up ten minutes to determine whether the boy were most like his father or mother, and in what particular he resembled either, for of course every body differed, and every body was astonished at the opinion of the others.

A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid! The proper sport of boys and girls, but a single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as any body else.

Money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it.

I feel as if I could be any thing or every thing, as if I could rant and storm, or sigh, or cut capers in any tragedy or comedy in the English language.

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.

I could not be happy with a man whose taste did not in every point coincide with my own. He must enter in all my feelings; the same books, the same music must charm us both.

Esteem him! Like him! Cold-hearted Elinor! Oh! worse than cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise. Use those words again, and I will leave the room this moment.

It's a truth universally acknowledged...

I shall ever despise the man who can be gratified by the passion which he never wished to inspire, nor solicited the avowal of.

I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.

What are men to rocks and mountains?

I assure you. I have no notion of treating men with such respect. That is the way to spoil them.

Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are men to rocks and mountains?

I cannot think well of a man who sports with any woman's feelings; and there may often be a great deal more suffered than a stander-by can judge.

He then departed, to make himself still more interesting, in the midst of an heavy rain.

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

It is a difference of opinion which does not admit of proof. We each begin probably with a little bias towards our own sex, and upon that bias build every circumstance in favour of it which has occurred within our own circle;

Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well−informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid.

If, however, I am allowed to think that you and yours feel an interest in my fate and actions, it may be the means - it may put me on my guard - at least, it may be something to live for.

…she felt depressed beyond any thing she had ever known before.

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