Jane Austen Quotes
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She was sensible and clever, but eager in everything; her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation.
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Life could do nothing for her, beyond giving time for a better preparation for death.
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There are certainly not so many men of large fortune in the world, as there are pretty women to deserve them.
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If this man had not twelve thousand a year, he would be a very stupid fellow.
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Imust have a London audience.I could never preach, but to the educated; to those who were capable of estimating my composition.
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There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time.
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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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Time did not compose her.
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It is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.
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Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.
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This sweetest and best of all creatures, faultless in spite of all her faults.
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A report of a most alarming nature reached me two days ago.
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To her own heart it was a delightful affair, to her imagination it was even a ridiculous one, but to her reason, her judgment, it was completely a puzzle.
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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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Money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it.
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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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When once married people begin to attack me with, 'Oh! you will think very differently, when you are married,' I can only say, 'No I shall not'; and then they say again, 'Yes you will,' and there is an end to it.
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There is something in the eloquence of the pulpit, when it is really eloquence, which is entitled to the highest praise and honour. The preacher who can touch and affect such an heterogeneous mass of hearers, on subjects limited, and long worn thread-bare in all common hands; who can say any thing new or striking, any thing that rouses the attention, without offending the taste, or wearing out the feelings of his hearers, is a man whom one could not (in his public capacity) honour enough.
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Nothing ever fatigues me, but doing what I do not like.
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Mr. Knightley seemed to be trying not to smile; and succeeded without difficulty, upon Mrs. Elton's beginning to talk to him.
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I can easily believe it. Women of that class have great opportunities, and if they are intelligent may be well worth listening to. Such varieites of human nature as they are in the habit of witnessing! And it is not merely in its follies, that they are read; for they see it occasionally under every circumstance that can be most interesting or affecting. What instances must pass before them of ardent, disinterested, self-denying attachment, of heroism, fortitude, patience, resignation-- of all the sacrifices that ennoble us most. A sick chamber may often furnish the worth of volumes.
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Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch-hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Barontage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; . . .
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Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.
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Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride - where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation.