Jane Austen Quotes on Pleasure (19 Quotes)

And have you never known the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess? I pity you. I thought you cleverer; for depend upon it, a lucky guess is never merely luck. There is always some talent in it.

Even pleasure, you know, is fatiguing…

I don't approve of surprises. The pleasure is never enhanced and the inconvenience is considerable.

One cannot creep upon a journey; one cannot help getting on faster than one has planned: and the pleasure of coming in upon one's friends before the look-out begins is worth a great deal more than any little exertion it needs.

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; and it must be by a long and unnatural estrangement, by a divorce which no subsequent connection can justify, if such precious remains of the earliest attachments are ever entirely outlived.

Those who have not more must be satisfied with what they have.

And from the whole she deduced this useful lesson, that to go previously engaged to a ball, does not necessarily increase either the dignity or enjoyment of a young lady.

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.

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!

Far be it from me, my dear sister, to depreciate such pleasures. They would doubtless be congenial with the generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for me. I should infinitely prefer a book.

I do not cough for my own amusement.

I have not the pleasure of understanding you.

Mr. Bennet's expectations were fully answered. His cousin was as absurd as he had hoped, and he listened to him with the keenest enjoyment.

Where she feared most to fail, she was most sure of success, for those to whom she endeavored to give pleasure were prepossessed in her favor.

You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.

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

Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.

Why not seize the pleasure at once, how often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparations.

To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.