Jane Austen Quotes

There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.

~ Jane Austen

A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.

~ Jane Austen

In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.

~ Jane Austen

The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!

~ Jane Austen

I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.

~ Jane Austen

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

~ Jane Austen

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

~ Jane Austen

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

~ Jane Austen

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.

~ Jane Austen

She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me, and I am in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.

~ Jane Austen

Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.

~ Jane Austen

I come here with no expectations, only to profess, now that I am at liberty to do so, that my heart is and always will be...yours.

~ Jane Austen

They were within twenty yards of each other, and so abrupt was his appearance, that it was impossible to avoid his sight. Their eyes instantly met, and the cheeks of each were overspread with the deepest blush. He absolutely started, and for a moment seemed immoveable from surprise; but shortly recovering himself, advanced towards the party, and spoke to Elizabeth, if not in terms of perfect composure, at least of perfect civility.

~ Jane Austen

No man is offended by another man's admiration of the woman he loves it is the woman only who can make it a torment.

~ Jane Austen

To wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect

~ Jane Austen

You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner. (Elizabeth Bennett)

~ Jane Austen

Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death.

~ Jane Austen

Elizabeth's spirit's soon rising to playfulness again, she wanted Mr. Darcy to account for his having ever fallen in love with her. 'How could you begin?' said she. begun.

~ Jane Austen

Is not general incivility the very essence of love?

~ Jane Austen

One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.

~ Jane Austen

How quick come the reasons for approving what we like.

~ Jane Austen

Without music, life would be a blank to me.

~ Jane Austen

...when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.

~ Jane Austen

Do not give way to useless alarm; though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain.

~ Jane Austen

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.

~ Jane Austen

And to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.

~ Jane Austen

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.

~ Jane Austen

I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.

~ Jane Austen

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.

~ Jane Austen

Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing after all.

~ Jane Austen

I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.

~ Jane Austen

It is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are they the result of previous study?

~ Jane Austen

Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride - where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation.

~ Jane Austen

And pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked.

~ Jane Austen

my good qualities are under your protection, and you are to exaggerate them as much as possible; and, in return, it belongs to me to find occasion for teasing and quarreling with you as often as may be...

~ Jane Austen

There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do if he chooses, and that is his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and resolution. - Mr. Knightley

~ Jane Austen

Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.

~ Jane Austen

Every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required.

~ Jane Austen

It has sunk him, I cannot say how much it has sunk him in my opinion. So unlike what a man should be!-None of that upright integrity, that strict adherence to truth and principle, that distain of trick and littleness, which a man should display in every transaction of his life.

~ Jane Austen

But to live in ignorance on such a point was impossible.

~ Jane Austen