Jane Austen Quotes

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

“Look into your own heart because who looks outside, dreams, but who looks inside awakes.”

“Five is the very awkwardest of all posible numbers to sit down to table.”

“I cannot make speeches, Emma...If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it.”

“Time, time will heal the wound.”

“Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.”

“I read it [history] a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all — it is very tiresome: and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention.”

“It would be most right, and most wise, and, therefore must involve least suffering.”

“Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable.”

“I understand Crawford paid you a visit?" "Yes." "And was he attentive?" "Yes, very." "And has your heart changed towards him?" "Yes. Several times. I have - I find that I - I find that-" "Shh. Surely you and I are beyond speaking when words are clearly not enough.... I missed you." "And I you.”

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

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

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

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

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

“He listened to her with silent attention, and on her ceasing to speak, rose directly from his seat, and after saying in a voice of emotion, 'To your sister I wish all imaginable happiness; to Willoughby, that he may endeavor to deserve her,' took leave, and went away.”

“How much I love every thing that is decided and open!”

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

“Here I have opportunity enough for the exercise of my talent, as the chief of my time is spent in conversation.”

“Each found her greatest safety in silence.”

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

“there is not one in a hundred of either sex, who is not taken in when they marry. ... it is, of all transactions, the one in which people expect most from others, and are least honest themselves.”

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

“An annuity is a very serious business.”

“Wisdom is better than wit, and in the long run will certainly have the laugh on her side.”