Jane Austen Quotes
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I do assure you, Sir, that I have no pretension whatever of that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere. I thank you again and again for the honour you have done me in your proposals, but to accept them is absolutely impossible. My feelings in every respect forbid it. Can I speak plainer? Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.
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One man's ways may be as good as another's, but we all like our own best.
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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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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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None but a woman can teach the science of herself.
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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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The most incomprehensible thing in the world to a man, is a woman who rejects his offer of marriage!
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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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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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There is not the hundredth part of the wine consumed in this kingdom that there ought to be. Our foggy climate wants help.
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There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.
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An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged: no harm can be done.
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Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.
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She would tell you herself that she has a very dreadful cold in her head at present; but I have not much compassion for colds in the head without fever or sore throat.
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A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.
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Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken.
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I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.
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I can safely say, that the happiest part of my life has been spent on board a ship.
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Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness.
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Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
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I want nothing but death.
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Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does.
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...she thought it was the misfortune of poetry, to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly, were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly.
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Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor, which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony.