“Time did not compose her.”

“I have often observed that resignation is never so perfect as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its value in our eyes.”

“It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy. I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples.”

“Elinor was to be the comforter of others in her own distresses, no less than in theirs; and all the comfort that could be given by assurances of her own composure of mind, and a very earnest vindication of Edward from every charge but of imprudence, was readily offered.”

“I trust that absolutes have gradations.”

“A mind does not receive truth as a chest receives jewels that are put into it, but as the stomach takes up food into the system. It is no longer food, but flesh, and is assimilated. The appetite and the power of digestion measure our right to knowledge. He has it who can use it. As soon as our accumulation overruns our invention or power to use, the evils of intellectual gluttony begin,— congestion of the brain, apoplexy and strangulation.”

“We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over and actually read a volume of four or five hundred pages.”

“Why should the government subsidize intellectual curiosity?”