Jane Austen Quotes

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

“Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience- or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

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

“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!”

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

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

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

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

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

“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.”

“I am excessively diverted.”

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

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

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

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

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

“I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.”

“Time will explain.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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?”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“She was stronger alone…”