Jane Austen

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 they the result of previous study?

Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.

Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of the mouths of other people.

The power of doing anything with quickness is always prized much by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance.

My sore throats are always worse than anyone's.

One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering.

We do not look in our great cities for our best morality.

One man's ways may be as good as another's, but we all like our own best.

A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.

Where youth and diffidence are united, it requires uncommon steadiness of reason to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl in the world.

An artist cannot do anything slovenly.

How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!

I could not sit down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life.

To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.

One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.

Is not general incivility the very essence of love?

I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.

The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.

Every savage can dance.

Dress is at all times a frivolous distinction, and excessive solicitude about it often destroys its own aim.

Respect for right conduct is felt by every body.

If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.

It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.

It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before.

Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain.

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

Where an opinion is general, it is usually correct.

One man's style must not be the rule of another's.

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.

There is not one in a hundred of either sex who is not taken in when they marry.

A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.

A man would always wish to give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from; and he who can do it, where there is no doubt of her regard, must, I think, be the happiest of mortals.

An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged; no harm can be done.

Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then.

What wild imaginations one forms where dear self is concerned! How sure to be mistaken!

In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels.

There are certainly not so many men of large fortune in the world, as there are pretty women to deserve them.

We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.

I would have everybody marry if they can do it properly: I do not like to have people throw themselves away; but everybody should marry as soon as they can do it to advantage.

There is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions.

Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.

I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.

It is very difficult for the prosperous to be humble.

A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.

Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.

There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.

There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.

If things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next.

Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.