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Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open?
Jane Austen -
A single woman with a narrow income must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid, the proper sport of boys and girls, but a single woman of fortune is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as anybody else.
Jane Austen
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For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?
Jane Austen -
A fondness for reading, which, properly directed, must be an education in itself.
Jane Austen -
The most incomprehensible thing in the world to a man, is a woman who rejects his offer of marriage!
Jane Austen -
The pleasures of friendship, of unreserved conversation, of similarity of taste and opinions will make good amends for orange wine.
Jane Austen -
There are people who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.
Jane Austen -
An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.
Jane Austen
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The wisest and the best of men, nay, the wisest and best of their actions, may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke.
Jane Austen -
You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. I roused, and interested you, because I was so unlike them.
Jane Austen -
I have always maintained the importance of Aunts...
Jane Austen -
It was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now.
Jane Austen -
Lady Middleton ... exerted herself to ask Mr. Palmer if there was any news in the paper. 'No, none at all,' he replied, and read on.
Jane Austen -
...there is not the least wit in my nature. I am a very matter of fact, plain spoken being, and may blunder on the borders of a repartee for half an hour together without striking it out.
Jane Austen
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We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us.
Jane Austen -
Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces.
Jane Austen -
By the bye, as I must leave off being young, I find many douceurs in being a sort of chaperon, for I am put on the sofa near the fire and can drink as much wine as I like.
Jane Austen -
Is there not something wanted, Miss Price, in our language – a something between compliments and – and love – to suit the sort of friendly acquaintance we have had together?
Jane Austen -
There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison...
Jane Austen -
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.
Jane Austen
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It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before.
Jane Austen -
The Webbs are really gone! When I saw the waggons at the door, and thought of all the trouble they must have in moving, I began to reproach myself for not having liked them better, but since the waggons have disappeared my conscience has been closed again, and I am excessively glad they are gone.
Jane Austen -
It's been many years since I had such an exemplary vegetable.
Jane Austen -
...why did we wait for any thing? - why not seize the pleasure at once? - How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!
Jane Austen