Jane Austen Quotes

They danced again, and when the assembly closed, parted, on the lady’s side at least, with a strong inclination for continuing the acquaintance. Whether she thought of him so much while she drank her warm wine and water and prepared herself for bed as to dream of him when there, cannot be ascertained; but I hope it was no more than in a light slumber, or a morning doze at most, for if it be true, as a celebrated writer has maintained, that no young lady can be justified in falling in love before the gentleman’s love is declared, it must be very improper that a young lady should dream of a gentlemen before the gentleman is first known to have dreamed of her.

~ Jane Austen

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.

~ Jane Austen

All the privilege I claim for my own sex, is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.

~ Jane Austen

Every moment has its pleasures and its hope.

~ Jane Austen

but a sanguine temper, though for ever expecting more good than occurs, does not always pay for its hopes by any proportionate depression. it soon flies over the present failure, and begins to hope again.

~ Jane Austen

…told herself likewise not to hope. But it was too late. Hope had already entered…

~ Jane Austen

I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love said Darcy.Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what isstrong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, Iam convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.

~ Jane Austen

However, he wrote some verses on her, and very pretty they were.” “And so ended his affection,” said Elizabeth impatiently. “There has been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!” “I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love,” said Darcy. “Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.

~ Jane Austen

she thought it was the misfortune of poetry, to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly, were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly.

~ Jane Austen

I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love

~ Jane Austen

I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my life, & if it were indispensable for me to keep it up & never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No - I must keep my own style & go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.

~ Jane Austen

[I]f a book is well written, I always find it too short.

~ Jane Austen

A woman, especially if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.

~ Jane Austen

She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance - a misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. 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.

~ Jane Austen

Facts or opinions which are to pass through the hands of so many, to be misconceived by folly in one, and ignorance in another, can hardly have much truth left.

~ Jane Austen

Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody.

~ Jane Austen

The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance.

~ Jane Austen

There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those two young men. One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it.

~ Jane Austen

A fondness for reading, properly directed, must be an education in itself.

~ Jane Austen

My idea of good company, Mr. Eliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.

~ Jane Austen

...it is very well worth while to be tormented for two or three years of one's life, for the sake of being able to read all the rest of it. Consider - if reading had not been taught, Mrs. Radcliffe would have written in vain - or perhaps might not have written at all.

~ Jane Austen

She looked back as well as she could; but it was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she supposed and made everything bend to it.

~ Jane Austen

It is singularity which often makes the worst part of our suffering, as it always does of our conduct.

~ Jane Austen

We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be

~ Jane Austen

It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;—it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.

~ Jane Austen

Time will explain.

~ Jane Austen

Time did not compose her.

~ Jane Austen

Time will generally lessen the interest of every attachment not within the daily circle.

~ Jane Austen

These were reflections that required some time to soften, but time will do almost every thing…

~ Jane Austen

I frequently observe that one pretty face would be followed by five and thirty frights.

~ Jane Austen

I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.

~ Jane Austen

but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.

~ Jane Austen

It is only a novel... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language

~ Jane Austen

If a book is well written, I always find it too short.

~ Jane Austen

How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book!

~ Jane Austen

Books--oh! no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with the samefeelings.I am sorry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at least beno want of subject. We may compare our different opinions.

~ Jane Austen

...I will not allow books to prove any thing.But how shall we prove any thing?We never shall.

~ Jane Austen

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

And Marianne, who had the knack of finding her way in every house to the library, however it might be avoided by the family in general, soon procured herself a book.

~ Jane Austen

The evils arising from the loss of her uncle were neither trifling nor likely to lessen; and when thought had been freely indulged, in contrasting the past and the present, the employment of mind and dissipation of unpleasant ideas which only reading could produce made her thankfully turn to a book.

~ Jane Austen