Quotes from Jane Austen

Whom are you going to dance with?' asked Mr. Knightley. She hesitated a moment and then replied, 'With you, if you will ask me.' Will you?' said he, offering his hand. Indeed I will. You have shown that you can dance, and you know we are not really so much brother and sister as to make it at all improper.' Brother and sister! no, indeed.

I understand Crawford paid you a visit? Yes. And was he attentive? Yes, very. And has your heart changed towards him? Yes. Several times. I have - I find that I - I find that- Shh. Surely you and I are beyond speaking when words are clearly not enough.... I missed you. And I you.

but then I am unlike other people I dare say.

I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man.

Yes, you know enough of my frankness to believe me capable of that. After abusing you so abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all your relations." -Elizabeth Bennet

Real solemn history, I cannot be interested in.... The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars and pestilences in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all.

I leave it to be settled, by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.

A woman of seven and twenty, said Marianne, after pausing a moment, can never hope to feel or inspire affection again.

And from the whole she deduced this useful lesson, that to go previously engaged to a ball, does not necessarily increase either the dignity or enjoyment of a young lady.

She is loveliness itself.

It sometimes is a disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection from the object of it, she may loose the opportunity of fixing him.

When any two young people take it into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance to carry their point, be they ever so poor, or ever so imprudent, or ever so little likely to be necessary to each other's ultimate comfort.

It was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now.

Facts are such horrid things!

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

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

It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.

She prized the frank, the open-hearted, the eager character beyond all others. Warmth and enthusiasm did captivate her still. 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.

Where shall we see a better daughter, or a kinder sister, or a truer friend?

Thus much indeed he was obliged to acknowledge - that he had been constant unconsciously, nay unintentionally; that he had meant to forget her, and believed it to be done. He had imagined himself indifferent, when he had only been angry; and he had been unjust to her merits, because he had been a sufferer from them.

Oh! write, write. Finish it at once. Let there be an end of this suspense. Fix, commit, condemn yourself.

Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.

He listened to her with silent attention, and on her ceasing to speak, rose directly from his seat, and after saying in a voice of emotion, 'To your sister I wish all imaginable happiness; to Willoughby, that he may endeavor to deserve her,' took leave, and went away.

She was not often invited to join in the conversation of the others, nor did she desire it. Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.