Jane Austen

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

Catherine had never wanted comfort more, and he [Henry] looked as if he was aware of it.

I leave it to be settled, by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.

Trusting that you will some time or other do me greater justice than you can do now.

one day in the country is exactly like another.

Now I must give one smirk and then we may be rational again

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its fragrance on the desert air.

But Catherine did not know her own advantages - did not know that a good-looking girl, with an affectionate heart and a very ignorant mind, cannot fail of attracting a clever young man, unless circumstances are particularly untoward.

Where people are really attached, poverty itself is wealth.

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.

He may live in my memory as the most amiable man of my acquaintance.

Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility.

She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It was an union that must have been to the advantage of both: by her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved; and from his judgement, information, and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance.

One word from you shall silence me forever.

What a shame, for I dearly love to laugh.

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

That is what I like; that is what a young man ought to be. Whatever be his pursuits, his eagerness in them should know no moderation, and leave him no sense of fatigue.

Faultless in spite of all her faults.

[Mrs. Allen was] never satisfied with the day unless she spent the chief of it by the side of Mrs. Thorpe, in what they called conversation, but in which there was scarcely ever any exchange of opinion, and not often any resemblance of subject, for Mrs. Thorpe talked chiefly of her children, and Mrs. Allen of her gowns.

It sometimes is a disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection from the object of it, she may loose the opportunity of fixing him.

How she might have felt had there been no Captain Wentworth in the case, was not worth enquiry; for there was a Captain Wentworth: and be the conclusion of the present suspense good or bad, her affection would be his forever. Their union, she believed, could not divide her more from other men, than their final separation.