Jane Austen Quotes

“I do not cough for my own amusement.”

“'My fingers,' said Elizabeth, 'do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many woman's do. They have not the same force of rapidity and do not possess the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault - because I would not take the trouble of practicing. It is not that I do not believe my fingers as capable as any other woman's of superior execution.'Darcy smiled and said, 'You are perfectly right.'”

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”

“I would have everybody marry if they can do it properly: I do not like to have people throw themselves away; but everybody should marry as soon as they can do it to advantage.”

“Where shall we see a better daughter, or a kinder sister, or a truer friend?”

“She tried to be calm, and leave things to take their course; and tried to dwell much on this argument of rational dependence – “Surely, if there be constant attachment on each side, our hearts must understand each other ere long. We are not boy and girl, to be captiously irritable, misled by every moment’s inadvertence, and wantonly playing with our own happiness.” And yet, a few minutes afterwards, she felt as if their being in company with each other, under their present circumstances, could only be exposing them to inadvertencies and misconstructions of the most mischievous kind.”

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

“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”

“Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge." -Elinor Dashwood”

“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.”

“but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.”

“There is nothing like employment, active indispensable employment, for relieving sorrow. Employment, even melancholy, may dispel melancholy.”

“She was stronger alone.”

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

“Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience- or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.”

“Dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled.”

“Vanity, not love, has been my folly.”

“My object then," replied Darcy, "was to show you, by every civility in my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you see that your reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes introduced themselves I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an hour after I had seen you.”

“An interval of meditation, serious and grateful, was the best corrective of everything dangerous in such a high-wrought felicity; and she went to her room, and grew steadfast and fearless in the thankfulness of her enjoyment.”

“It is very unfair to judge any body's conduct, without an intimate knowledge of their situation.”

“Perhaps it is our imperfections that make us so perfect for one another.”

“A novel must show how the world truly is. Somehow, reveals the true source of our actions.”

“But there are some situations of the human mind in which good sense has very little power.”

“Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.”

“Mr. Knightley seemed to be trying not to smile; and succeeded without difficulty, upon Mrs. Elton's beginning to talk to him.”