Jane Austen Quotes
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If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.
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I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.
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Thus much indeed he was obliged to acknowledge - that he had been constant unconsciously, nay unintentionally; that he had meant to forget her, and believed it to be done. He had imagined himself indifferent, when he had only been angry; and he had been unjust to her merits, because he had been a sufferer from them.
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One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.
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A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.
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There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.
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Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.
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I am very much obliged to my dear little George for his message - for his love at least; his duty, I suppose, was only in consequence of some hint of my favourable intentions towards him from his father or mother. I am sincerely rejoiced, however, that I ever was born, since it has been the means of procuring him a dish of tea.
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She had a lively, playful disposition that delighted in anything ridiculous.
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It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire.
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Marianne was silent; it was impossible for her to say what she did not feel, however trivial the occasion.
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Our little visitor has just left us, and left us highly pleased with her; she is a nice, natural, open-hearted, affectionate girl, with all the ready civility which one sees in the best children in the present day; so unlike anything that I was myself at her age, that I am often all astonishment and shame.
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The General has got the gout, and Mrs. Maitland the jaundice. Miss Debary, Susan, and Sally, all in black, but without any stature, made their appearance, and I was as civil to them as their bad breath would allow me.
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Obstinate, headstrong girl!
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My head-dress was a bugle-band like the border to my gown, and a flower of Mrs Tilson’s. I depended upon hearing something of the evening from Mr. W. K., and am very well satisfied with his notice of me - 'A pleasing looking young woman' - that must do; one cannot pretend to anything better now; thankful to have it continued a few years longer!
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What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited sketches, full of variety and glow? How could I possibly join them on to the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labour?
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I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him.
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I read it [history] a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all — it is very tiresome: and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention.
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I am sorry to tell you that I am getting very extravagant, and spending all my money, and, what is worse for you, I have been spending yours too.
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Maybe it’s that I find it hard to forgive the follies and vices of others, or their offenses against me. My good opinion, once lost, is lost forever.
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Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.
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Not very good, I am afraid. But now really, do not you think Udolpho the nicest book in the world?" "The nicest—by which I suppose you mean the neatest. That must depend upon the binding.
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There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison...
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Next week I shall begin my operations on my hat, on which you know my principal hopes of happiness depend.