Jane Austen Quotes
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A fondness for reading, which, properly directed, must be an education in itself.
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Mr. Digweed has used us basely. Handsome is as handsome does; he is therefore a very ill-looking man.
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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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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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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 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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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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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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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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Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness.
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Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.
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It was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now.
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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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The distance is nothing when one has a motive.
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I trust that absolutes have gradations.
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I want nothing but death.
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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.
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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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I believe you [men] capable of everything great and good in your married lives. I believe you equal to every important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance, so long as - if I may be allowed the expression, so long as you have an object. I mean, while the woman you love lives, and lives for you. All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, you need not covet it) is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.
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I had a very pleasant evening, however, though you will probably find out that there was no particular reason for it; but I do not think it worth while to wait for enjoyment until there is some real opportunity for it.
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Goldsmith tells us, that when lovely woman stoops to folly, she has nothing to do but to die; and when she stoops to be disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill-fame.
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From the very beginning— from the first moment, I may almost say— of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.