Jane Austen Quotes
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It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.
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With a book he was regardless of time.
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You have qualities which I had not before supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you.
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I am fond of history and am very well contented to take the false with the true. In the principal facts they have sources of intelligence in former histories and records, which may be as much depended on, I conclude, as anything that does not actually pass under ones own observation; and as for the little embellishments you speak of, they are embellishments, and I like them as such.
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A report of a most alarming nature reached me two days ago.
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Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.
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A very narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper. Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small, and generally very inferior, society, may well be illiberal and cross.
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I have been used to consider poetry as "the food of love" said Darcy. "Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.
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Now they were as strangers; nay worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted.
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I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my life, & if it were indispensable for me to keep it up & never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No - I must keep my own style & go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.
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Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply.
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Evil to some is always good to others...
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Perhaps it is our imperfections that make us so perfect for one another.
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My characters shall have, after a little trouble, all that they desire.
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One half of her should not be always so much wiser than the other half.
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You expect me to account for opinions which you choose to call mine, but which I have never acknowledged.
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Sitting with her on Sunday evening - a wet Sunday evening - the very time of all others when if a friend is at hand the heart must be opened, and every thing told.
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Young ladies should take care of themselves. Young ladies are delicate plants. They should take care of their health and their complexion. My dear, did you change your stockings?
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The distance is nothing when one has a motive.
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I do not know whether it ought to be so, but certainly silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.
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One word from you shall silence me forever.
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My good qualities are under your protection, and you are to exaggerate them as much as possible; and, in return, it belongs to me to find occasion for teasing and quarreling with you as often as may be.
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It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;—it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.
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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.