Jane Austen

“There is not one in a hundred of either sex who is not taken in when they marry.”

“Her mind was all disorder. The past, present, future, every thing was terrible.”

“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.”

“I do not find it easy to talk to people I don't know.”

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

“Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility.”

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

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

“I . . . am always half afraid of finding a clever novel too clever--& of finding my own story & my own people all forestalled.”

“He could not forgive her, but he could not be unfeeling. Though condemning her for the past, and considering it with high and unjust resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer, without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder of former sentiment; it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart.”

“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.”

“I can recollect nothing more to say at present; perhaps breakfast may assist my ideas. I was deceived -- my breakfast supplied only two ideas -- that the rolls were good and the butter bad.”

“Oh!” said she, “I heard you before, but I could not immediately determine what to say in reply. You wanted me, I know, to say ‘Yes,’ that you might have the pleasure of despising my taste; but I always delight in overthrowing those kind of schemes, and cheating a person of their premeditated contempt. I have, therefore made up my mind to tell you, that I do not want to dance a reel at all--and now despise me if you dare.” “Indeed I do not dare.”

“By the bye, as I must leave off being young, I find many douceurs in being a sort of chaperon , for I am put on the sofa near the fire and can drink as much wine as I like.”

“Cold-hearted Elinor! Oh! Worse than cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise.--Marianne Dashwood”

“I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress.”

“Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.”

“To her own heart it was a delightful affair, to her imagination it was even a ridiculous one, but to her reason, her judgment, it was completely a puzzle.”

“Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.”

“I am not fond of the idea of my shrubberies being always approachable.”

“It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.”

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

““I often think,” said she, “that there is nothing so bad as parting with one's friends. One seems so forlorn without them.””

“She denied none of it aloud, and agreed to none of it in private.”

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

“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.”

“A very short trial convinced her that a curricle was the prettiest equipage in the world.”

“To be claimed as a good, though in an improper style, is at least better than being rejected as no good at all.”

“We do not look in our great cities for our best morality.”

“Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain.”

“A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.”

“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.”

“At first sight, his address is certainly not striking; and his person can hardly be called handsome, till the expression of his eyes, which are uncommonly good, and the general sweetness of his countenance, is perceived.”

“I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.”

“Lovely & too charming Fair one, notwithstanding your forbidding Squint, your greazy tresses & your swelling Back, which are more frightful than imagination can paint or pen describe, I cannot refrain from expressing my raptures, at the engaging Qualities of your Mind, which so amply atone for the Horror, with which your first appearance must ever inspire the unwary visitor.”

“I have had to contend against the unkindness of his sister, and the insolence of his mother; and have suffered the punishment of an attachment, without enjoying its advantages.”

“We met Dr. Hall in such deep mourning that either his mother, his wife, or himself must be dead.”

“They parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a mutual desire of never meeting again.”

“I am now convinced that I have never been much in love; for had I really experienced that pure and elevating passion, I should at present detest his very name, and wish him all manner of evil. But my feelings are not only cordial towards him; they are even impartial towards her. I cannot find out that I hate her at all, or that I am in the least unwilling to think her a very good sort of girl. There can be no love in all this.”

“Half the sum of attraction, on either side, might have been enough, for he had nothing to do, and she had hardly any body to love." (of Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth, Persuasion)”

“The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance. The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life, had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister.”

“She is loveliness itself.”

“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.”

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

“The younger brother must help to pay for the pleasures of the elder.”

“How horrible it is to have so many people killed! And what a blessing that one cares for none of them!”

“I never wish to offend, but I am so foolishly shy, that I often seem negligent, when I am only kept back by my natural awkwardness.”

“If things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next.”

“You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.”

“To take a dislike to a young man, only because he appeared to be of a different disposition from himself, was unworthy the real liberality of mind”