Jane Austen Quotes

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...I have loved none but you.

~ Jane Austen

The I examined my own heart. And there you were. Never, I fear, to be removed.

~ Jane Austen

Upon my word, Emma, to hear you abusing the reason you have, is almost enough to make me think so too. Better be without sense than misapply it as you do.

~ Jane Austen

…she had no resources for solitude…

~ Jane Austen

Mr. Collins was to attend them, at the request of Mr. Bennet, who was most anxious to get rid of him, and have his library to himself

~ Jane Austen

Shall I ask you how the church is to be filled, if a man is neither to take orders with a living, nor without?

~ Jane Austen

Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure

~ Jane Austen

If I am wrong, I am doing what I believe to the right.

~ Jane Austen

... his second... must give him the pleasantest proof of its being a great deal better to choose than to be chosen, to excite gratitude than to feel it.

~ Jane Austen

With this answer Elizabeth was forced to be content; but her own opinion continued the same, and she left disappointed and sorry. It was not in her nature, however, to increase her vexations by dwelling on them. She was confident of having performed her duty, and to fret over unavoidable evils, or augment them by anxiety, was no part of her disposition.

~ Jane Austen

To avoid a comparative poverty, which her affection and her society would have deprived of all its horrors, I have, by raising myself to affluence, lost everything that could make it a blessing.

~ Jane Austen

What a revolution in her ideas!

~ Jane Austen

The older a person grows, Harriet, the more important it is that their manners should not be bad; the more glaring and disgusting any loudness, or coarseness, or awkwardness becomes. What is passable in youth is detestable in later age.

~ Jane Austen

I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.

~ Jane Austen

Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? Youtake delight in vexing me. You have no compassion for my poor nerves.You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. Theyare my old friends. I have heard you mention them with considerationthese last twenty years at least.

~ Jane Austen

It was a very proper wedding. The bride was elegantly dressed---the two bridemaids were duly inferior---her father gave her away---her mother stood with salts in her hand expecting to be agitated---her aunt tried to cry--- and the service was impressively read by Dr. Grant.

~ Jane Austen

I admire all my three sons-in-law highly. Wickham, perhaps is my favourite; but I think I shall like your husband quite as well as Jane's.

~ Jane Austen

After having so nobly disentangled themselves from the shackles of Parental Authority, by a Clandestine Marriage, they were determined never to forfeit the good opinion they had gained in the World, in so doing, by accepting any proposals of reconciliation that might be offered them by their Fathers – to their farther trial of their noble independence however they never were exposed.

~ Jane Austen

for though a very few hours spent in the hard labor of incessant talking will dispatch more subjects that can really be in common between two rational creatures, yet for the lovers is different. Between them no subject is finished; no communication is ever made, till it has been made at least twenty times over.

~ Jane Austen

Provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she had never any objection to books at all.

~ Jane Austen

She is probably by this time as tired of me, as I am of her; but as she is too Polite and I am too civil to say so, our letters are still as frequent and affectionate as ever, and our Attachment as firm and sincere as when it first commenced.

~ Jane Austen

Our time was most delightfully spent, in mutual Protestations of Freindship, and in vows of unalterable Love, in which we were secure from being interrupted, by intruding and disagreeable Visistors, as Augustus and Sophia had on their first Entrance in the Neighbourhood, taken due care to inform the surrounding Families, that as their happiness centered wholly in themselves, they wished for no other society.

~ Jane Austen

Poor woman! She probably thought change of air might agree with many of her children.

~ Jane Austen

That will do extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let the other young ladies have time to exhibit.

~ Jane Austen

But it was a matter of great consolation to her, that what brought evil to herself would bring good to her sister; and Elinor, on the other hand, suspecting that it would not be in her power to avoid Edward entirely, comforted herself by thinking, that though their longer stay would therefore militate against her own happiness, it would be better for Marianne than an immediate return into Devonshire.

~ Jane Austen

How unfortunate, considering I have decided to loathe him for eternity

~ Jane Austen

Affectation of candour is common enough—one meets with it everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design—to take the good of everybody's character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad—belongs to you alone.

~ Jane Austen

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

~ Jane Austen

There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost every attachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all BEGIN freely--a slight preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement. In nine cases out of ten a women had better show MORE affection than she feels. Bingley likes your sister undoubtedly; but he may never do more than like her, if she does not help him on.

~ Jane Austen

Goldsmith tells us, that when lovely woman stoops to folly, she has nothing to do but to die; and when she stoops to be disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill-fame.

~ Jane Austen

Sometime the worst type of weapon in the world is love.

~ Jane Austen

Marianne would have thought herself very inexcusable had she been able to sleep at all the first night after parting from Willoughby. She would have been ashamed to look her family in the face next morning, had she not risen from her bed in more need of repose than when she lay down in it.

~ Jane Austen

I am fond of history and am very well contented to take the false with the true. In the principal facts they have sources of intelligence in former histories and records, which may be as much depended on, I conclude, as anything that does not actually pass under ones own observation; and as for the little embellishments you speak of, they are embellishments, and I like them as such.

~ Jane Austen

...for to be sunk, though but for an hour in your esteem is a humiliation to which I know not how to submit. -Susan

~ Jane Austen

One must not expect every thing.

~ Jane Austen

And now I may dismiss my heroine to the sleepless couch, which is the true heroine's portion - to a pillow strewed with thorns and wet with tears. And lucky may she think herself, if she get another good night's rest in the course of the next three months.

~ Jane Austen

Catherine had never wanted comfort more, and [Henry] looked as if he was aware of it.

~ Jane Austen

When shall I cease to regret you! – When learn to feel a home elsewhere! – Oh! Happy house, could you know what I suffer in now viewing you from this spot, from whence perhaps I may view you no more! – And you, ye well-known trees! – but you will continue the same. – No leaf will decay because we are removed, nor any branch become motionless although we can observe you no longer! – No; you will continue the same; unconscious of the pleasure or the regret you occasion, and insensible of any change in those who walk under your shade! – But who will remain to enjoy you?

~ Jane Austen

--As I must therefore conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me, I shall choose to attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females. --I do assure you, sir, that I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere.

~ Jane Austen

But history, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. Can you?Yes, I am fond of history.I wish I were too. I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all -- it is very tiresome.

~ Jane Austen