Jane Austen Quotes
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No young lady can be justified in falling in love before the gentleman's love is declared, it must be very improper that a young lady should dream of a gentleman before the gentleman is first known to have dreamt of her.
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There is a quickness of perception in some, a nicety in the discernment of character, a natural penetration, in short, which no experience in others can equal.
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She tried to explain the real state of the case to her sister. "I do not attempt to deny," said she, "that I think very highly of him--that I greatly esteem, that I like him." Marianne here burst with forth with indignation: "Esteem him! Like him! Cold-hearted Elinor. Oh! worse than cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise. Use those words again, and I will leave the room this moment." Elinor could not help laughing. "Excuse me," said she, "and be assured that I meant no offence to you, by speaking, in so quiet a way, of my own feelings.
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She looked back as well as she could; but it was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she supposed and made everything bend to it.
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One can never have too large a party.
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There is nothing like employment, active indispensable employment, for relieving sorrow. Employment, even melancholy, may dispel melancholy.
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The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.
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A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her.
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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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And to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.
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With a book he was regardless of time.
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My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?
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Is not poetry the food of love?
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Oh! you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general. You never see fault in any body. All the world are good and agreeable in your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of a human being in my life." "I would wish not to be hasty in censuring any one; but I always speak what I think.
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Perhaps it is our imperfections that make us so perfect for one another.
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Lady Sondes' match surprises, but does not offend me; had her first marriage been of affection, or had their been a grown-updaughter, I should not have forgiven her; but I consider everybody as having a right to marry once in their lives for love, if they can.
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She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.
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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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She was not often invited to join in the conversation of the others, nor did she desire it. Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.
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He then departed, to make himself still more interesting, in the midst of a heavy rain.
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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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Mr. Bennet's expectations were fully answered. His cousin was as absurd as he had hoped, and he listened to him with the keenest enjoyment.
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I am not born to sit still and do nothing. If I lose the game, it shall not be from not striving for it.
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She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.