Quotes from Jane Austen

There, he had learnt to distinguish between the steadiness of principle and the obstinacy of self-will, between the darings of heedlessness and the resolution of a collected mind.

Give a girl an education, and introduce her properly into the world

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.

But it is very foolish to ask questions about any young ladies — about any three sisters just grown up; for one knows, without being told, exactly what they are — all very accomplished and pleasing, and one very pretty. There is a beauty in every family. — It is a regular thing

Her mind was all disorder. The past, present, future, every thing was terrible.

He had suffered, and he had learnt to think, two advantages that he had never known before…

I am amazingly absent; I believe I am the most absent creature in the world.

From a night of more sleep than she had expected, Marianne awoke the next morning to the same consciousness of misery in which she had closed her eyes.

She knew that what Marianne and her mother conjectured one moment, they believed the next: that with them, to wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect.

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

She was nothing more than a mere good-tempered, civil and obliging Young Woman; as such we could scarcely dislike her -- she was only an Object of Contempt

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

His feelings are warm, but I can imagine them rather changeable.

Tienes una triste alternativa ante ti, Elizabeth: debes renunciar a uno de tus padres. Tu madre no quiere volver a verte si no te casas con Collins, y yo no quiero volver a verte si te casas con él.

I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any.

To come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.

I am half agony, half hope.

I . . . am always half afraid of finding a clever novel too clever--& of finding my own story & my own people all forestalled.

Love which did not build a foundation on good sense was doomed.

I have never yet known what it was to separate esteem from love

If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am.

I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty women can bestow.' Miss Bingley immediately fixated her eyes on his face, and desired he would tell her what lady had the credit of inspiring such reflections. Mr. Darcy replied: 'Miss Elizabeth Bennet.

How horrible it is to have so many people killed! And what a blessing that one cares for none of them!

the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.