Explore Quotes by Jane Austen

I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other.

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.

What are men to rocks and mountains?

Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise.

I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.

Cold-hearted Elinor! Oh! Worse than cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise.--Marianne Dashwood

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.

From the very beginning— from the first moment, I may almost say— of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.

“It is not everyone,” said Elinor, “who has your passion for dead leaves.”

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 every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.

Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.

Everybody has their taste in noises as well as in other matters; and sounds are quite innoxious, or most distressing, by their sort rather than their quantity.

How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind!

When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable If I have not an excellent library.

There are secrets in all families.

Upon the whole, therefore, she found what had been sometimes found before, that an event to which she had looked forward with impatient desire, did not, in taking place, bring all the satisfaction she had promised herself.

It is very unfair to judge any body's conduct, without an intimate knowledge of their situation.

We must consider what Miss. Fairfax quits, before we condemn her taste for what she goes to.

Her companion's discourse now sunk from its hitherto animated pitch, to nothing more than a short, decisive sentence of praise or condemnation on the face of every woman they met; and Catherine, after listening and agreeing as long as she could,with all the civility and deference of the youthful female mind, fearful of hazarding an opinion of its own in opposition to that of a self-assured man, especially where the beauty of her own sex is concerned, ventured at length to vary the subject.

Here I have opportunity enough for the exercise of my talent, as the chief of my time is spent in conversation.

What do you know of my heart? What do you know of anything but your own suffering?