Quotes from Jane Austen

When I fall in love, it will be forever.

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.

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?

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.

I cannot make speeches, Emma...If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it.

You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.

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.

Till this moment I never knew myself.

It is only a novel... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language

I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yielding— certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of other so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.

We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him.

If I could but know his heart, everything would become easy.

There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison

Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her.

A girl likes to be crossed a little in love now and then. It is something to think of

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. Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. 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.

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

Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience- or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.

What strange creatures brothers are!

It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;—it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.

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

Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.

Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied.