Jane Austen Quotes (569 Quotes)

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

Happiness must preclude false indulgence and physic.

It was impossible to quarrel with words, whose tremulous inequality showed indisposition so plainly.

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

Where there is a wish to please, one ought to overlook, and one does overlook a great deal.

He feared that principle, active principle, had been wanting; that they had never been properly taught to govern their inclinations and tempers by that sense of duty which can alone suffice. They had been instructed theoretically in their religion, but never required to bring it into daily practice.

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody not greatly in fault themselves to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest.

There is no reason in the world why you should not be important where you are known. You have good sense, and a sweet temper, and I am sure you have a grateful heart, that could never receive kindness without hoping to return it. I do not know any better qualifications for a friend and companion.

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.

Oh! I am delighted with the book! I should like to spend my whole life in reading it.

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

He frequently observed, as he walked out, that one handsome face would be followed by thirty, or five-and-thirty frights; and once, as he stood in a shop in Bond Street, he had counted eighty-seven women go by, one after another, without there being a tolerable face among them.

Mindennél többre becsülte az o"szinte, nyíltszivu", szenvedélyes természetet. Az érzelmek ereje, a lelkesedés mindenkor rabul ejtette szívét. Sokkal inkább meg tudott bízni olyanokban, akik néha elhamarkodva vagy felületesen nyilatkoznak, mint abban, akit sohasem hagy cserben az elo"vigyázatossága, sohasem botlik meg a nyelve.

We certainly do not forget you, so soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves.

And if I had not a letter to write myself, I might sit by you and admire the evenness of your writing, as another young lady once did. But I have an aunt too, who must not be longer neglected.

Do not you feel a great inclination, Miss Bennet, to seize such an opportunity of dancing a reel?

Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her.

I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yielding- certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of other so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.

It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion, to be secure of judging properly at first.

Money is the best recipe for happiness.

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

There seemed a gulf impassable between them.

What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased. - Darcy

A woman of seven and twenty, said Marianne, after pausing a moment, can never hope to feel or inspire affection again.

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.

That is what I like; that is what a young man ought to be. Whatever be his pursuits, his eagerness in them should know no moderation, and leave him no sense of fatigue.

A very narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper. Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small, and generally very inferior, society, may well be illiberal and cross.

He knew her illnesses; they never occurred but for her own convenience.

It's such a happiness when good people get together.

That will just do for me, you know. I shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth, shan't I?

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

He had suffered, and he had learnt to think, two advantages that he had never known beforeà

Let us have the luxury of silence.

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

But the inexplicability of the General's conduct dwelt much on her thoughts. That he was very particular in his eating, she had, by her own unassisted observation, already discovered; but why should he say one thing so positively, and mean another all the while, was most unaccountable. How were people, at that rate, to be understood?

Our pleasures in this world are always to be paid for.

Where people are really attached, poverty itself is wealth.

He had an affectionate heart. He must love somebody.

No: the years which had destroyed her youth and bloom had only given him a more glowing, manly, open look, in no respect lessening his personal advantages. She had seen the same Frederick Wentworth.

We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us.

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

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.

Her mind was less difficult to develop.

I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man.

It is wonderful, for almost all his actions may be traced to pride;-and pride has often been his best friend.

Mr. Bennet was among the earliest of those who waited on Mr. Bingley. He had always intended to visit him, though to the last always assuring his wife that he should not go; and till the evening after the visit was paid she had no knowledge of it. It was then disclosed in the following manner. Observing his second daughter employed in trimming a hat, he suddenly addressed her with:

One word from you shall silence me forever.

They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.

What praise is more valuable than the praise of an intelligent servant?

Always resignation and acceptance. Always prudence and honour and duty. Elinor, where is your heart?