Jane Austen

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

She was humbled, she was grieved; she repented, though she hardly knew of what. She became jealous of his esteem, when she could no longer hope to be benefited by it. She wanted to hear of him, when there seemed the least chance of gaining intelligence. She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should meet.

Far be it from me, my dear sister, to depreciate such pleasures. They would doubtless be congenial with the generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for me. I should infinitely prefer a book.

A woman of seven and twenty, said Marianne, after pausing a moment, can never hope to feel or inspire affection again.

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

My Emma, does not every thing serve to prove more and more the beauty of truth and sincerity in all our dealings with each other?

..that sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself

There seemed a gulf impassable between them.

Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.

Without music, life would be a blank to me.

At first sight, his address is certainly not striking; and his person can hardly be called handsome, till the expression of his eyes, which are uncommonly good, and the general sweetness of his countenance, is perceived.

If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard?

This sweetest and best of all creatures, faultless in spite of all her faults.

You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.

We all love to instruct, though we can teach only what is not worth knowing.

I do regard her as one who is too modest for the world in general to be aware of half her accomplishments, and too highly accomplished for modesty to be natural of any other woman.

I would much rather have been merry than wise.

The world may know my words, but it has no such privileges with my heart

She denied none of it aloud, and agreed to none of it in private.

The distance is nothing when one has a motive.

She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.