Jane Austen Quotes 477 Quotes of Timeless Wisdom, Love, Friendship, Society, and Human Nature

“I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.”

Source: Sense and Sensibility: The Screenplay

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

“Angry people are not always wise.”

“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice (1813)

Jane Austen Quotes about love

“The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen book Sense and Sensibility

Variant: Mama, the more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.
Source: Sense and Sensibility

“We are all fools in love”

“Friendship is really the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Variant: Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
Source: Northanger Abbey

“To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.”

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope… I have loved none but you.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice (1813)

“Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.”

Variant: You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever.
Source: Persuasion

Jane Austen: Trending quotes

Jane Austen book Mansfield Park

Dinner was soon followed by tea and coffee, a ten miles' drive home allowed no waste of hours; and from the time of their sitting down to table, it was a quick succession of busy nothings till the carriage came to the door, and Mrs. Norris, having fidgeted about, and obtained a few pheasants' eggs and a cream cheese from the housekeeper, and made abundance of civil speeches to Mrs. Rushworth, was ready to lead the way.
Misattributed
Source: Said by Fanny Price in a 1999 adaptation of Mansfield Park. Actual quote:

“There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison”

“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.”

Source: Persuasion

“How horrible it is to have so many people killed! And what a blessing that one cares for none of them!”

Jane Austen Quotes

“I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”

Letter (1811-05-31) referring to the Peninsular War [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

“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.”

Letter to Cassandra (1798-12-24) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters
Source: Jane Austen's Letters

“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“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.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“Till this moment I never knew myself.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.

-Mr. Darcy”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“I wish, as well as everybody else, to be perfectly happy; but, like everybody else, it must be in my own way.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen book Sense and Sensibility

Source: Sense and Sensibility

“Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.”

“Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“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.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does.
And men take care that they should.”

Source: Emma (1815)

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

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“I am happier than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh. Mr. Darcy sends you all the love in the world, that he can spare from me.”

Variant: You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.
Source: Pride and Prejudice

“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste it's fragrance on the desert air.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“my courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.”

Source: Emma

“She is loveliness itself.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“You must really begin to harden yourself to the idea of being worth looking at.”

Source: Emma

Jane Austen book Mansfield Park

Source: Mansfield Park

“Your countenance perfectly informs me that you were in company last night with the person, whom you think the most agreeable in the world, the person who interests you at this present time, more than all the rest of the world put together.”

“How clever you are, to know something of which you are ignorant.”

Source: Persuasion

“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.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”

Variant: In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will no longer be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.
Source: Pride And Prejudice

“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”

Variant: It's a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
Source: Pride and Prejudice (1813)

“Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“Ah! there is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.”

Variant: But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days.
Source: Persuasion

“The Very first moment I beheld him, my heart was irrevocably gone.”

Emma (1815)
Works, Emma

Jane Austen book Love and Freindship

Source: Love and Friendship

“I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.”

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

Persuasion (1817)
Works, Persuasion
Source: Pride and Prejudice