Jane Austen Quotes (569 Quotes)

Better be without sense than to misapply it...

I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be more

No! Thank you for thinking I am thoughtful.

This sweetest and best of all creatures, faultless in spite of all her faults.

Believe me, I have no please in the world superior to that of contributing to yours. No, I can safely say, I have no pleasure so complete, so unalloyed. It is without a drawback.

I purposefully abstain from dates on this occasion,that very one may be liberty to fix their own,aware that the cure of unconquerable passions,and the transfer of unchanging attachments,must vary much as to time in different people.---I only entreat every body to believe that exactly at the time when it was quite natural that it should be so, and not a week earlier,Edmund did cease to care about Miss Crawford, and become anxious to marry Fanny,as Fanny herself could desire.

Poor woman! She probably thought change of air might agree with many of her children.

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

I am fond of history and am very well contented to take the false with the true. In the principal facts they have sources of intelligence in former histories and records, which may be as much depended on, I conclude, as anything that does not actually pass under ones own observation; and as for the little embellishments you speak of, they are embellishments, and I like them as such.

The anxiety, which in this state of their attachment must be the portion of Henry and Catherine, and of all who loved either, as to its final event, can hardly extend, I fear, to the bosom of my readers, who will see in the tell-tale compression of the pages before them, that we are all hastening together to perfect felicity.

All the overpowering blinding, bewildering, first effects of strong surprise were over with her. Still, however, she had enough to feel! It was agitation, pain, pleasure, a something between delight and misery.

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

She would have liked to know how he felt as to a meeting. Perhaps indifferent, if indifference could exist under such circumstances. He must be either indifferent or unwilling. Has he wished ever to see her again, he need not have waited till this time; he would have done what she could not but believe that in his place she should have done long ago, when events had been early giving him the indepencence which alone had been wanting.

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope

As he quitted the room, Elizabeth felt how improbable it was that they should ever see each other again on such terms of cordiality... and as she threw a retrospective glance over the whole of their acquaintance, so full of contradictions and varieties, sighed at the perverseness of those feelings which would now have promoted its continuance, and would formerly have rejoiced in its termination.

From all that I can collect by your manner of talking, you must be two of the silliest girls in the country. I have suspected it some time, but I am now convinced.

I am certainly the most fortunate creature ever existed!

I take no leave of you, Miss Bennet: I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased.

It was not in her nature, however, to increase her vexations by dwelling on them. She was confident of having performed her duty, and to fret over unavoidable evils, or augment them by anxiety, was not part of her disposition.

My good opinion once lost is lost forever.

The boy protested that she should not; she continued to declare that she would, and the argument ended only with the visit.

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

Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride-- where these is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation.

Elinor looked at him with greater astonishment than ever. She began to think that he must be in liquor...

Life could do nothing for her, beyond giving time for a better preparation for death.

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

I do not find myself making any use of the word sacrifice.

No, indeed, I shall grant you nothing. I always take the part of my own sex. I do indeed. I give you notice-- You will find me a formidable antagonist on that point. I always stand up for women.

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

But it is very foolish to ask questions about any young ladies - about any three sisters just grown up; for one knows, without being told, exactly what they are - all very accomplished and pleasing, and one very pretty. There is a beauty in every family. - It is a regular thing

I think it ought not to be set down as certain, that a man must be acceptable to every woman he may happen to like himself.

Run mad as long as you choose, but do not faint.

You have qualities which I had not before supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you.

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

The mere habit of learning to love is the thing; and a teachableness of disposition in a young lady is a great blessing

An interval of meditation, serious and grateful, was the best corrective of everything dangerous.

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.

So you and I are to be left to shift by ourselves, with this poor sick child; and not a creature coming near us all the evening! I knew how it would be. This is always my luck. If there is anything disagreeable going on men are always sure to get out of it, and Charles is as bad as any of them.

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.

But Elizabeth was not formed for ill-humour; and though every prospect of her own was destroyed for the evening, it could not dwell long on her spirits; and having told all her griefs to Charlotte Lucas, whom she had not seen for a week, she was soon able to make a voluntary transition to the oddities of her cousin, and to point him out to her particular notice. The first two dances, however, brought a return of distress; they were dances of mortification. Mr. Collins, awkward

From the very beginning- from the first moment, I may almost say- of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.

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.

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

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

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.

The distance is nothing when one has a motive.

To such perseverance in willful self-deception Elizabeth would make no reply, and immediately and in silence withdrew; determined, that if he persisted in considering her repeated refusals as flattering encouragement, to apply to her father, whose negative might be uttered in such a manner as must be decisive, and whose behavior at least could not be mistaken for the affectation and coquetry of an elegant female.

Yes; these four evenings have enabled them to ascertain that they both like Vingt-un better than Commerce; but with respect to any other leading characteristic, I do not imagine that much has been unfolded.

Elinor, I have been cruelly used; but not by Willoughby.

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