Quotes from Jane Austen

A novel must show how the world truly is. Somehow, reveals the true source of our actions.

Anne hoped she had outlived the age of blushing; but the age of emotion she certainly had not.

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

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.

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

Arguments are too much like disputes.

I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth.

An agreeable manner may set off handsome features, but can never alter plain ones.

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

It is wonderful, for almost all his actions may be traced to pride;-and pride has often been his best friend.

An annuity is a very serious business.

And what am I to do on the occasion? -- It seems an hopeless business.

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

An artist cannot do anything slovenly.

It was, perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides.

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

my courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.

I want nothing but death.

Nothing ever fatigues me but doing what I do not like.

You ought certainly to forgive them as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing

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

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

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

Friendship is the finest balm for the pangs of despised love.