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I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.
Jane Austen
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...but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.
Jane Austen
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A lucky guess is never merely luck. There is always some talent in it.
Jane Austen
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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.
Jane Austen
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It's such a happiness when good people get together.
Jane Austen
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Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
Jane Austen
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My characters shall have, after a little trouble, all that they desire.
Jane Austen
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No one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with.
Jane Austen
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I certainly must,' said she. 'This sensation of listlessness, weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself, this feeling of everything's being dull and insipid about the house! I must be in love; I should be the oddest creature in the world if I were not.
Jane Austen
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An annuity is a very serious business.
Jane Austen
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An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.
Jane Austen
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Those who do not complain are never pitied.
Jane Austen
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Ah, mother! How do you do?' said he, giving her a hearty shake of the hand; 'Where did you get that quiz of a hat? It makes you look like an old witch...' On his two younger sisters he then bestowed an equal portion of his fraternal tenderness, for he asked each of them how they did, and observed that they both looked very ugly.
Jane Austen
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And sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in.
Jane Austen
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Without music, life would be a blank to me.
Jane Austen
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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.
Jane Austen
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We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us.
Jane Austen
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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.
Jane Austen
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I can safely say, that the happiest part of my life has been spent on board a ship.
Jane Austen
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I cannot help hoping that many will feel themselves obliged to buy it. I shall not mind imagining it a disagreeable duty to them, so as they do it.
Jane Austen
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For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?
Jane Austen
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Here and there, human nature may be great in times of trial, but generally speaking it is its weakness and not its strength that appears in a sick chamber; it is selfishness and impatience rather than generosity and fortitude, that one hears of. There is so little real friendship in the world! – and unfortunately' (speaking low and tremulously) 'there are so many who forget to think seriously till it is almost too late.
Jane Austen
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I am come, young ladies, in a very moralizing strain, to observe that our pleasures of this world are always to be for, and that we often purchase them at a great disadvantage, giving readi-monied actual happiness for a draft on the future, that may not be honoured.
Jane Austen
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Your abuse of our gowns amuses but does not discourage me; I shall take mine to be made up next week, and the more I look at it the better it pleases me. My cloak came on Tuesday, and, though I expected a good deal, the beauty of the lace astonished me. It is too handsome to be worn - almost too handsome to be looked at.
Jane Austen
