Jane Austen Quotes page 2 477 Quotes of Timeless Wisdom, Love, Friendship, Society, and Human Nature

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

Source: Sense and Sensibility

“Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection.”

Northanger Abbey (1817)
Works, Northanger Abbey

“She was sensible and clever, but eager in everything; her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen

Source: Sense and Sensibility: The Screenplay

“Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied.”

“There are people who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first?”

Source: Emma (1815)

Jane Austen

“She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me, and I am in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.”

“It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;—it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

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

Source: Sense and Sensibility

“Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing after all.”

Source: Sense and Sensibility

Jane Austen

“One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.”

“I certainly have not the talent which some people possess," said Darcy, "of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.”

Source: Emma (1815)

“How quick come the reasons for approving what we like.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“It's been many years since I had such an exemplary vegetable.”

Source: Persuasion

“All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one: you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone!”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“Better be without sense than misapply it as you do.”

Source: Persuasion

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

Source: Emma

“Without music, life would be a blank to me.”

Source: Persuasion

“… when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.”

Source: Emma

“A man does not recover from such devotion of the heart to such a woman! He ought not; he does not.”

Source: Persuasion

“I come here with no expectations, only to profess, now that I am at liberty to do so, that my heart is and always will be… yours.”

Source: Persuasion

“I am excessively diverted.”

Source: Sense and Sensibility

“You must be the best judge of your own happiness.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“I will be calm. I will be mistress of myself.”

Source: Emma

“But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever.”

Source: Sense and Sensibility

“She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she was not wise yet.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.”

Source: Persuasion

“I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Source: Northanger Abbey

“Time will explain.”

“She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should meet.”

Source: Persuasion

“Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen book Mansfield Park

Source: Mansfield Park

“Men of sense, whatever you may choose to say, do not want silly wives.”

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

Source: Emma

Jane Austen book Mansfield Park

Source: Mansfield Park

“No man is offended by another man's admiration of the woman he loves; it is the woman only who can make it a torment.”

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

Source: Northanger Abbey

“Nothing is more deceitful," said Darcy, "than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice (1813)

“Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“Now be sincere; did you admire me for my impertinence?"

"For the liveliness of your mind, I did.”

Source: Sense and Sensibility

“If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.”

Source: Northanger Abbey

“Let us never underestimate the power of a well-written letter.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“I might as well enquire,” replied she, “why with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character?”

Source: Persuasion

“They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“Do not give way to useless alarm; though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing; but I have never been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.”

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“Now they were as strangers; worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted.”

Source: Emma

“Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces.”

Source: Persuasion

“She was stronger alone…”

Source: Pride and Prejudice