Explore Quotes by Jane Austen

And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody." "And yours," he replied with a smile, "is willfully to misunderstand them.

She hardly knew how to suppose that she could be an object of admiration to so great a man.

that you seemed almost as fearful of notice and praise as other women were of neglect. (Edmund to Fanny)

I particularly recollect your saying one night, after they had been dining at Netherfield, 'SHE a beauty!--I should as soon call her mother a wit.' But afterwards she seemed to improve on you, and I believe you thought her rather pretty at one time." "Yes," replied Darcy, who could contain himself no longer, "but THAT was only when I first saw her, for it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance.

She knew that what Marianne and her mother conjectured one moment, they believed the next: that with them, to wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect.

You may only call me "Mrs. Darcy"... when you are completely, and perfectly, and incandescently happy.

It was for the sake of what had been, rather than what was.

The longer they were together the more doubtful seemed the nature of his regard, and sometimes for a few painful minutes she believed it to be no more than friendship

There could have never been two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved. Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement.

What do you know of my heart? What do you know of anything but your own suffering. For weeks, Marianne, I've had this pressing on me without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature. It was forced on me by the very person whose prior claims ruined all my hope. I have endured her exultations again and again whilst knowing myself to be divided from Edward forever. Believe me, Marianne, had I not been bound to silence I could have provided proof enough of a broken heart, even for you.

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

She was stronger alone; and her own good sense so well supported her, that her firmness was as unshaken, her appearance of cheerfulness as invariable, as, with regrets so poignant and so fresh, it was possible for them to be.

Catherine [...] enjoyed her usual happiness with Henry Tilney, listening with sparkling eyes to everything he said; and, in finding him irresistible, becoming so herself.

A single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as any body else.

He is also handsome," replied Elizabeth, "which a young man ought likewise to be, if he possibly can. His character is thereby complete.

Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant.

Sometimes the last person on earth you want to be with is the one person you can't be without.

Our scars make us know that our past was for real

There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.

Money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it.

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.