Jane Austen Quotes
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There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do if he chooses, and that is his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and resolution. - Mr. Knightley
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Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a something of shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the latter.
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Sophia shrieked and fainted on the ground-I screamed and instantly ran mad! We remained thus mutually deprived of our senses some minutes, and on regaining them were deprived of them again. For an hour and a quarter did we continue in this unfortunate situation.
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A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.
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And now I may dismiss my heroine to the sleepless couch, which is the true heroine's portion - to a pillow strewed with thorns and wet with tears. And lucky may she think herself, if she get another good night's rest in the course of the next three months.
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Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.
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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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The evening ended with dancing. On its being proposed, Anne offered her services, as usual, and though her eyes would sometimes fill with tears as she sat at the instrument, she was extremely glad to be employed, and desired nothing in return but to be unobserved.
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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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Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.
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We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.
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In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.
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Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.
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Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.
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'I am afraid', replied Elinor, 'that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.'
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It was, perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides.
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...but a sanguine temper, though for ever expecting more good than occurs, does not always pay for its hopes by any proportionate depression. it soon flies over the present failure, and begins to hope again.
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I can never be important to any one.' 'What is to prevent you?' 'Every thing — my situation — my foolishness and awkwardness.
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She had a lively, playful disposition that delighted in anything ridiculous.
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I want nothing but death.
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You deserve a longer letter than this; but it is my unhappy fate seldom to treat people so well as they deserve.
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If a woman is partial to a man, and does not endeavour to conceal it, he must find it out."
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You are very kind in planning presents for me to make, and my mother has shown me exactly the same attention; but as I do not choose to have generosity dictated to me, I shall not resolve on giving my cabinet to Anna till the first thought of it has been my own.