Jane Austen Quotes (569 Quotes)

A very narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper. Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small, and generally very inferior, society, may well be illiberal and cross.

He knew her illnesses; they never occurred but for her own convenience.

It's such a happiness when good people get together.

That will just do for me, you know. I shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth, shan't I?

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

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

Let us have the luxury of silence.

These were reflections that required some time to soften; but time will do almost every thingà

But the inexplicability of the General's conduct dwelt much on her thoughts. That he was very particular in his eating, she had, by her own unassisted observation, already discovered; but why should he say one thing so positively, and mean another all the while, was most unaccountable. How were people, at that rate, to be understood?

Our pleasures in this world are always to be paid for.

Where people are really attached, poverty itself is wealth.

He had an affectionate heart. He must love somebody.

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.

We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us.

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

Elizabeth could never address her without feeling that all the comfort of intimacy was over, and, though determined not to slacken as a correspondent, it was for the sake of what had been, rather than what was.

Her mind was less difficult to develop.

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

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

Mr. Bennet was among the earliest of those who waited on Mr. Bingley. He had always intended to visit him, though to the last always assuring his wife that he should not go; and till the evening after the visit was paid she had no knowledge of it. It was then disclosed in the following manner. Observing his second daughter employed in trimming a hat, he suddenly addressed her with:

One word from you shall silence me forever.

They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.

What praise is more valuable than the praise of an intelligent servant?

Always resignation and acceptance. Always prudence and honour and duty. Elinor, where is your heart?

I do not dislike him. I consider him, on the contrary, as a very respectable man, who has everybody's good word and nobody's notice…

The whole story would have been speedily formed under her active imagination; and every thing established in the most melancholy order of disastrous love

A young woman, if she fall into bad gands, may be teazed, and kept at a distance from those she wants to be with; but one cannot comprehend a young man's being under such restraint, as not to be able to spend a week with his father, if he likes it.

Heavens! let me not suppose that she dares go about Emma Woodhouse-ing me! But, upon my honour, there seems no limits to the licentiousness of that woman's tongue!

Letters are no matter of indifference; they are generally a very positive curse.

The hair was curled, and the maid sent away, and Emma sat down to think and be miserable.

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.

He was in love, very much in love; and it was a love which, operating on an active, sanguine spirit, of more warmth than delicacy, made her affection appear of greater consequence, because it was witheld, and determined him to have the glory, as well as the felicity of forcing her to love him.

Mr. Rushworh was very ready to request the favour of Mr. Crawford's assistance; and Mr. Crawford after properly depreciating his own abilities, was quite at his service in any way that could be useful.

This was a letter to be run through eagerly, to be read deliberately, to supply matter for much reflection, and to leave everything in greater suspense than ever.

But your mind is warped by an innate principle of general integrity, and, therefore, not accessible to the cool reasonings of family partiality, or a desire of revenge.

Reluctantly, and with much hesitation, did she then begin what might perhaps, at the end of half an hour, be termed, by the courtesy of her hearers, an explanation;

Where the heart is really attached, I know very well how little one can be pleased with the attention of any body else.

He would look for her- he would find her out long before the evening were over- and at present, perhaps, it was as to be asunder. She was in need of a little interval for recollection.

Now they were as strangers; nay worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted.

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.

Angry people are not always wise.

Elizabeth found that nothing was beneath this great lady's attention, which could furnish her with an occasion of dictating to others.

His sisters were anxious for his having an estate of his own; but, though he was now only established as a tenant, Miss Bingley was by no means unwilling to preside at his table-nor was Mrs. Hurst, who had married

I have not the pleasure of understanding you.

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.

Mr. Bennet's expectations were fully answered. His cousin was as absurd as he had hoped, and he listened to him with the keenest enjoyment.

She attracted him more than he liked.

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

When a woman has five grown-up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty.

And Elinor, in quitting Norland and Edward, cried not as I did. Even now her self-command is invariable. When is she dejected or melancholy? When does she try to avoid society, or appear restless and dissatisfied in it?