Jane Austen quotes:

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.

My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.

Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.

Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor. Which is one very strong argument in favor of matrimony.

To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain for the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.

Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody.

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.

My sore throats are always worse than anyone's.

A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.

No man is offended by another man's admiration of the woman he loves; it is the woman only who can make it a torment.

There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.

Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then.

A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.

General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be.

To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.

One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering.

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.

There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.

Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain.

The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.

The power of doing anything with quickness is always prized much by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance.

Business, you know, may bring you money, but friendship hardly ever does.

If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.

It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage.

What wild imaginations one forms where dear self is concerned! How sure to be mistaken!

A man would always wish to give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from; and he who can do it, where there is no doubt of her regard, must, I think, be the happiest of mortals.

Is not general incivility the very essence of love?

Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.

Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.

One man's style must not be the rule of another's.

One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.

It is very difficult for the prosperous to be humble.

There is not one in a hundred of either sex who is not taken in when they marry.

I would have everybody marry if they can do it properly: I do not like to have people throw themselves away; but everybody should marry as soon as they can do it to advantage.

There is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions.

Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of the mouths of other people.

What is right to be done cannot be done too soon.

A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.

We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.

To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.

Good-humoured, unaffected girls, will not do for a man who has been used to sensible women. They are two distinct orders of being.

To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.

One man's ways may be as good as another's, but we all like our own best.

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be a heroineBut from fifteen to seventeen she was in training for a heroine

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.

But Catherine did not know her own advantages - did not know that a good-looking girl, with an affectionate heart and a very ignorant mind, cannot fail of attracting a clever young man, unless circumstances are particularly untoward.

Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.

What! Would I be turned back from doing a thing that I had determined to do, and that I knew to be right, by the airs and interference of such a person, or any person I may say? No, I have no idea of being so easily persuaded. When I have made up my mind, I have made it.

I do not know where the error lies. I do not pretend to set people right, but I do see that they are often wrong.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

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.

Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection.

The most incomprehensible thing in the world to a man, is a woman who rejects his offer of marriage!

Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want.

I pay very little regard, said Mrs. Grant, to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person.

Miss Bingley's congratulations to her brother, on his approaching marriage, were all that was affectionate and insincere.

Luck which so often defies anticipation in matrimonial affairs, giving attraction to what is moderate rather than to what is superior.

With such a worshipping wife, it was hardly possible that any natural defects in it should not be increased. The extreme sweetness of her temper must hurt his.

I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house tonight or never.

and their marriage, instead of depriving her of one friend, secured her two.

But without scheming to do wrong, or to make others unhappy, there may be error, and there may be misery. Thoughtlessness, want of attention to other people's feelings, and want of resolution, will do the business.

No: the years which had destroyed her youth and bloom had only given him a more glowing, manly, open look, in no respect lessening his personal advantages. She had seen the same Frederick Wentworth.

What can be the meaning of that emphatic exclamation?" cried heDo you consider the forms of introduction, and the stress that is laid on them, as nonsense? I cannot quite agree with you there. What say you, Mary? For you are a young lady of deep reflection, I know, and read great books and make extracts."

Emphatic"

You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever."

My good qualities are under your protection, and you are to exaggerate them as much as possible; and, in return, it belongs to me to find occasion for teasing and quarreling with you as often as may be..."

The world had made him extravagant and vain - Extravagance and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish. Vanity, while seeking its own guilty triumph at the expense of another, had involved him in a real attachment, which extravagance, or at least its offspring, necessity, had required to be sacrificed. Each faulty propensity in leading him to evil, had led him likewise to punishment."

The power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. - Mr Darcy"

They were rather handsome, had been educated in one of the first private seminaries in town,"

Had Elizabeth been able to encounter his eye, she might have seen how well the expression of heartfelt delight, diffused over his face, became him; but, though she could not look, she could listen, and he told her of feelings, which, in proving of what importance she was to him, made his affection every moment more valuable."

His departure gave Catherine the first experimental conviction that a loss may be sometimes a gain."

I'm very fond of experimental housekeeping."

Te aseguro que no soy de las que quieren a medias. Mis sentimientos siempre son profundos y arraigados"..."

I saw you thro' a telescope and was so struck by your Charms that from that time to this I have not tasted human food."

Far be it from me, my dear sister, to depreciate such pleasures. They would doubtless be congenial with the generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for me. I should infinitely prefer a book."

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.

You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. -Mr. Darcy

In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels.

Angry people are not always wise.

She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.

Such a letter was not to be soon recovered from. . . . Every moment rather brought fresh agitation. It was an overpowering happiness.

Half the sum of attraction, on either side, might have been enough, for he had nothing to do, and she had hardly any body to love." (of Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth, Persuasion)

Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.

Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness.

I am all astonishment.

Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.

One has not great hopes from Birmingham. I always say there is something direful in the sound.

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.

I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.

None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.

There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.

It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.

He was not an ill-disposed young man, unless to be rather cold hearted, and rather selfish, is to be ill-disposed....

Cold-hearted Elinor! Oh! Worse than cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise.--Marianne Dashwood

I have not a doubt of your doing very well together. Your tempers are by no means unlike. You are each of you so complying, that nothing will ever be resolved on; so easy, that every servant will cheat you; and so generous, that you will always exceed your income.

She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me, and I am in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.

There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.

I have been used to consider poetry as "the food of love" said Darcy. "Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.

You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.

Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride - where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation.

You may only call me "Mrs. Darcy"... when you are completely, and perfectly, and incandescently happy.

You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner." (Elizabeth Bennett)

Yes," replied Darcy, who could contain himself no longer, "but that was when I first knew her; for it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance.

I certainly have not the talent which some people possess," said Darcy, "of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.

She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should meet.

There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those two young men. One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it.

The power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. - Mr Darcy

It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy. I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples.

They parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a mutual desire of never meeting again.

I will only add, God bless you.

I have the highest respect for your nerves, they are my old friends.

Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility.

I am determined that only the deepest love will induce me into matrimony. So... I shall end an old maid, and teach your ten children to embroider cushions and play their instruments very ill.

I am determined that nothing but the deepest love could ever induce me into matrimony. [Elizabeth]

It is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are they the result of previous study?

I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other.

Books--oh! no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with the same feelings." "I am sorry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at least be no want of subject. We may compare our different opinions.

Where youth and diffidence are united, it requires uncommon steadiness of reason to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl in the world.

He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and every body hoped that he would never come there again.