Jane Austen Quotes

Where the waters do agree, it is quite wonderful the relief they give.

~ Jane Austen

I dearly love a laugh.

~ Jane Austen

How I hate the sight of an umbrella!

~ Jane Austen

I do not know where the error lies. I do not pretend to set people right, but I do see that they are often wrong.

~ Jane Austen

He may have as strong a sense of what would be right, as you can have, without being so equal under particular circumstances to act up to it.Then, it would not be so strong a sense. If it failed to produce equal exertion, it could not be an equal conviction.

~ Jane Austen

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.

~ Jane Austen

The earliest intelligence of the travellers' safe arrival at Antigua, after a favourable voyage, was received; though not before Mrs. Norris had been indulging in very dreadful fears, and trying to make Edmund participate them whenever she could get him alone; and as she depended on being the first person made acquainted with any fatal catastrophe, she had already arranged the manner of breaking it to all the others, when Sir Thomas's assurances of their both being alive and well made it necessary to lay by her agitation and affectionate preparatory speeches for a while.

~ Jane Austen

I suspect that in this comprehensive and (may I say) commonplace censure, you are not judging from yourself, but from prejudiced persons, whose opinions you have been in the habit of hearing. It is impossible that your own observation can have given you much knowledge of the clergy. You can have been personally acquainted with very few of a set of men you condemn so conclusively.

~ Jane Austen

Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge.

~ Jane Austen

I never saw quite so wretched an example of what a sea-faring life can do: but to a degree, I know it is the same with them all; they are all knocked about, and exposed to every climate, and every weather, till they are not fit to be seen. It is a pity they are not knocked on the head at once, before they reach Admiral Baldwin's age.

~ Jane Austen

I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these.- Mr. Darcy

~ Jane Austen

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

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well.The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and everyday confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense.

~ Jane Austen

If gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Elizabeth's change of sentiment will be neither improbable nor faulty. But if otherwise--if regard springing from such sources is unreasonable or unnatural, in comparison of what is so often described as arising on a first interview with its object, and even before two words have been exchanged, nothing can be said in her defence, except that she had given somewhat of a trial to the latter method in her partiality for Wickham, and that its ill success might, perhaps, authorise her to seek the other less interesting mode of attachment.

~ Jane Austen

Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I have never been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall. And, without love, I am sure I should be a fool to change such a situation as mine.

~ Jane Austen

She had nothing to wish otherwise, but that the days did not pass so swiftly. It was a delightful visit;—perfect, in being much too short.

~ Jane Austen

Where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given.

~ Jane Austen

With insufferable vanity had she believed herself in the secret of everybody's feelings, with unpardonable arrogance proposed to arrange everybody's destiny. She was proved to have been universally mistaken, and she had not quite done nothing — for she had done mischief.

~ Jane Austen

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.

~ Jane Austen

Occupied in observing Mr. Bingley’s attentions to her sister, Elizabeth was far from suspecting that she was herself becoming an object of some interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty: he had looked at her without admiration at the ball; and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticise. But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. Of this she was perfectly unaware: to her he was only the man who made himself agreeable nowhere, and who had not thought her handsome enough to dance with.

~ Jane Austen

It is a most repulsive quality, indeed,’ said he. ‘Oftentimes very convenient, no doubt, but never pleasing. There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.’‘Not till the reserve ceases towards oneself; and then the attraction may be the greater.

~ Jane Austen

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.

~ Jane Austen

There had been moments when she felt he had almost forgiven her. She would always remember those moments.

~ Jane Austen

Till it does come, you know, we women never mean to have anybody. It is a thing of course among us, that every man is refused, till he offers.

~ Jane Austen

There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil - a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.

~ Jane Austen

sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in but what was worn and hackneyed out of all sense and meaning

~ Jane Austen

Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge

~ Jane Austen

Marianne was silent; it was impossible for her to say what she did not feel, however trivial the occasion…

~ Jane Austen

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

~ Jane Austen

There is a monsterous deal of stupid quizzing, & common-place nonsense talked, but scarcely any wit.

~ Jane Austen

This was a lucky recollection -- it saved her from something like regret.

~ Jane Austen

...it is indeed a street of so impertinent a nature, so unfortunately connected with the great London and Oxford roads, and the principal inn of the city, that a day never passes in which parties of ladies, however important their business, whether in quest of pastry, millinery, or even (as in the present case) of young men, are not detained on one side or other by carriages, horsemen, or carts. This evil had been felt and lamented, at least three times a day, by Isabella since her residence in Bath...

~ Jane Austen

He listened to her with perfect indifference while she chose to entertain herself in this manner; and as his composure convinced her that all was safe, her wit flowed long.

~ Jane Austen

It was rather too late in the day to set about being simple-minded and ignorant.

~ Jane Austen

I'm very fond of experimental housekeeping.

~ Jane Austen

You judge very properly, and 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 the result of previous study?

~ Jane Austen

You will find her manners beyond anything I can describe; and your wit and vivacity, I think, must be acceptable to her, especially when tempered with the silence and respect which her rank will inevitably excite.

~ Jane Austen

How unlucky that you should have a reasonable answer to give, and that I should be so reasonable as to admit it!

~ Jane Austen

Her eye fell everywhere on lawns and plantations of the freshest green; and the trees, though not fully clothed, were in that delightful state when farther beauty is known to be at hand, and when, while much is actually given to the sight, more yet remains for the imagination.

~ Jane Austen

Upon my word, you five your opinion very decidedly for so young a person.

~ Jane Austen