Words matter. These are the best Jane Austen Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I could not sit down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life.
General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be.
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.
An artist cannot do anything slovenly.
Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.
One man’s style must not be the rule of another’s.
To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.
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?
It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before.
For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?
A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.
The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.
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.
What is right to be done cannot be done too soon.
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.
A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.
Nothing ever fatigues me but doing what I do not like.
Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.
I am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.
We do not look in our great cities for our best morality.
Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a something of shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the latter.
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.
To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain for the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.
Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.
I could not sit down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life.
A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.
Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.
It is very difficult for the prosperous to be humble.
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.
A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.
Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.
My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.
How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!
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.
One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering.
Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.
One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.
If things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next.
I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.
Where an opinion is general, it is usually correct.
From politics, it was an easy step to silence.
A single woman with a very narrow income must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid – the proper sport of boys and girls; but a single woman of good fortune is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as anybody else.
Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.
One man’s ways may be as good as another’s, but we all like our own best.
There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.
Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken.
Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody.
The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.
Those who do not complain are never pitied.
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.
I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.
Is not general incivility the very essence of love?
Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor. Which is one very strong argument in favor of matrimony.
For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?
There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.
