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I am determined that only the deepest love will induce me into matrimony. So... I shall end an old maid, and teach your ten children to embroider cushions and play their instruments very ill.
Jane Austen
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...from politics, it was an easy step to silence.
Jane Austen
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To love is to burn, to be on fire.
Jane Austen
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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.
Jane Austen
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A woman, especially if she has the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.
Jane Austen
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Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want.
Jane Austen
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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.
Jane Austen
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May I ask you what these questions tend?' 'Merely to the illustration of your character,' said she, endeavouring to shake off her gravity. 'I am trying to make it out.' 'And what is your success?' She shook her head. 'I do not get on at all. I hear such different accounts of you as puzzle me exceedingly.
Jane Austen
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Self-knowledge is the first step to maturity.
Jane Austen
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Let me know when you begin the new tea, and the new white wine. My present elegancies have not yet made me indifferent to such matters. I am still a cat if I see a mouse.
Jane Austen
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It is very unfair to judge any body's conduct, without an intimate knowledge of their situation.
Jane Austen
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If gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Elizabeth's change of sentiment will be neither improbable nor faulty. But if otherwise--if regard springing from such sources is unreasonable or unnatural, in comparison of what is so often described as arising on a first interview with its object, and even before two words have been exchanged, nothing can be said in her defence, except that she had given somewhat of a trial to the latter method in her partiality for Wickham, and that its ill success might, perhaps, authorise her to seek the other less interesting mode of attachment.
Jane Austen
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Teach us almighty father, to consider this solemn truth, as we should do, that we may feel the importance of every day, and every hour as it passes.
Jane Austen
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She is loveliness itself.
Jane Austen
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Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open?
Jane Austen
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Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.
Jane Austen
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One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.
Jane Austen
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I give you joy of our new nephew, and hope if he ever comes to be hanged it will not be till we are too old to care about it.
Jane Austen
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You know how interesting the purchase of a sponge-cake is to me.
Jane Austen
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I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed!
Jane Austen
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Ah! there is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.
Jane Austen
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How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind!
Jane Austen
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If I could not be persuaded into doing what I thought wrong, I never will be tricked into it.
Jane Austen
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A Woman never looks better than on horseback...
Jane Austen
