Jane Austen Quotes - Page 3

Young people do not like to be always thwarted.
Jane Austen
Nothing was so likely to do her good as a little quiet cheerfulness at home.
Jane Austen
It was gratitude; gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection.
Jane Austen
It was gratitude; gratitude, not merelyfor having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him.
Jane Austen
...the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.
Jane Austen
I should wish to see them very good friends, and would, on no account, authorize in my girls the smallest degree of arrogance towards their relations; but still they cannot be equals.” (10)
Jane Austen
You are infinitely my superior in merit; all that I know - You have qualities which I had not supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you, beyond what - not merely beyond what one sees, because one never sees any thing like it - but beyond what one fancies might be. But still I am not frightened. It is not by equality of merit that you can be won. That is out of the question. It is he who sees and worships your merit the strongest, who loves you most devotedly, that has the best right to a return.” (326)
Jane Austen
the rent here may be low but i believe we have it on very hard terms --sense & sensibility
Jane Austen
Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion and somethings an indirect boast.
Jane Austen
By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You shewed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.
Jane Austen
Nothing is more deceitful," said Darcy, "than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.
Jane Austen
The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in reading a good novel, must be incredibly stupid
Jane Austen
With a book, he was regardless of time.
Jane Austen
Oh! what a silly Thing is Woman! How vain, how unreasonable!
Jane Austen
Pride,’ observed Mary, who piqued herself upon the solidity of her reflections, ‘is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed; that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary.
Jane Austen
We must consider what Miss. Fairfax quits, before we condemn her taste for what she goes to.
Jane Austen
Depend upon it you see but half. You see the evil, but you do not see the consolation. There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better; we find comfort somewhere- and those evil-minded observers, dearest Mary, who make much of a little, are more taken in and deceived than the parties themselves.
Jane Austen
She had always wanted to do every thing, and had made more progress in both drawing and music than many might have done with so little labour as she ever would submit to... She was not much deceived as to her own skill either as an artist or a musician, but she was not unwilling to have others deceived, or sorry to know her reputation for accomplishment often higher than it deserved.
Jane Austen
He had just compunction enough for having done nothing for his sisters himself, to be exceedingly anxious that everybody else should do a great deal.
Jane Austen
The politeness which she had been brought up to practice as a duty made it impossible for her to escape; while the want of that higher species of self-command, that just consideration of others, that knowledge of her own heart, that principle of right which had not formed any essential part of her education, made her miserable under it.
Jane Austen
I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yielding— certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of other so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.
Jane Austen
She felt the loss of Willoughby's character yet more heavily than she had felt the loss of his heart.
Jane Austen
But I will not repine. It cannot last long. He will be forgot, and we shall all be as we were before.
Jane Austen
…Elinor was then at liberty to think and be wretched.
Jane Austen
What do you know of my heart? What do you know of anything but your own suffering. For weeks, Marianne, I've had this pressing on me without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature. It was forced on me by the very person whose prior claims ruined all my hope. I have endured her exultations again and again whilst knowing myself to be divided from Edward forever. Believe me, Marianne, had I not been bound to silence I could have provided proof enough of a broken heart, even for you.
Jane Austen
Eleanor went to her room "where she was free to think and be wretched.
Jane Austen
I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment
Jane Austen
For though a very few hours spent in the hard labour of incessant talking will dispatch more subjects than can really be in common between any two rational creatures, yet with lovers it is different. Between them no subject is finished, no communication is ever made, till it has been made at least twenty times over.
Jane Austen
She was of course only too good for him; but as nobody minds having what is too good for them, he was very steadily earnest in the pursuit of the blessing, and it was not possible that encouragement from her should be long wanting.
Jane Austen
If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him; and it will then be but poor consolation to believe the world equally in the dark. There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost any attachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all begin ‘freely’- as light preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have a heart enough to be really in love without encouragement.
Jane Austen
…each found her greatest safety in silence…
Jane Austen
Much was said, and much was ate, and all went well.
Jane Austen
To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen, is to do pretty well; and professing myself moreover convinced, that the General's unjust interference, so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their knowledge of each other, and adding strength to their attachment, I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.
Jane Austen
But the inexplicability of the General's conduct dwelt much on her thoughts. That he was very particular in his eating, she had, by her own unassisted observation, already discovered; but why should he say one thing so positively, and mean another all the while, was most unaccountable. How were people, at that rate, to be understood?
Jane Austen
Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.
Jane Austen
But remember that the pain of parting from friends will be felt by every body at times, whatever be their education or state.
Jane Austen
Every body has their taste in noises as well as other matters; and sounds are quite innoxious, or most distressing, by their sort rather than their quantity.
Jane Austen
She hated herself more than she could express.
Jane Austen
My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them──by which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents.
Jane Austen
Your feelings may be the strongest,’ replied Anne, ‘but the same spirit of analogy will authorise me to assert that ours are the most tender. Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer lived; which exactly explains my view of the nature of their attachments. Nay, it would be too hard upon you, if it were otherwise.
Jane Austen
Alas! with all her reasoning, she found, that to retentive feelings eight years may be little more than nothing.
Jane Austen
Her feelings were very acute, and too little understood to be properly attended to. Nobody meant to be unkind, but nobody put themselves out of their way to secure her comfort.
Jane Austen
...and yet, though desirous to be gone, she could not quit the mansion-house, or look an adieu to the cottage, with its black, dripping and comfortless veranda, or even notice through the misty glasses the last humble tenements of the village, without a saddened heart. Scenes had passed in Uppercross which made it precious. It stood the record of many sensations of pain, once severe, but now softened; and of some instances of relenting feeling, some breathings of friendship and reconciliation, which could never be looked for again, and which could never cease to be dear. She left it all behind her, all but the recollection that such things had been.
Jane Austen
Elizabeth had never been more at a loss to make her feelings appear what they were not. It was necessary to laugh, when she would rather have cried.
Jane Austen
I cannot, I cannot,' cried Marianne; 'leave me, leave me, if I distress you; leave me, hate me, forget me! But do not torture me so. Oh! how easy for those who have no sorrow of their own to talk of extertion!
Jane Austen
It was impossible to quarrel with words, whose tremulous inequality showed indisposition so plainly.
Jane Austen
She will never submit to any thing requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of the fancy to the understanding.
Jane Austen
You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to fall into it!
Jane Austen
Well, evil to some is always good to others.
Jane Austen
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 other people’s mouths. — I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it — but fear I must.
Jane Austen
I am no indiscriminate novel reader. The mere trash of the common circulating library I hold in the highest contempt.
Jane Austen
To exemplify, -a beautiful glossy nut, which, blessed with original strength, has outlived all the storms of autumn. Not a puncture, not a weak spot any where. -This nut... while so many of its brethren have fallen and been trodden under foot, is still in possession of all the happiness that a hazel-nut can be supposed capable of.
Jane Austen
[Mrs. Allen was] never satisfied with the day unless she spent the chief of it by the side of Mrs. Thorpe, in what they called conversation, but in which there was scarcely ever any exchange of opinion, and not often any resemblance of subject, for Mrs. Thorpe talked chiefly of her children, and Mrs. Allen of her gowns.
Jane Austen
I leave it to be settled, by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.
Jane Austen
Those who do not complain are never pitied.
Jane Austen
Obstinate, headstrong girl!
Jane Austen
I have changed my mind, and changed the trimmings of my cap this morning; they are now such as you suggested.
Jane Austen
If I could not be persuaded into doing what I thought wrong, I will never be tricked into it.
Jane Austen
I understand you.—You do not suppose that I have ever felt much.—For four months, Marianne, I have had all this hanging on my mind, without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature; knowing that it would make you and my mother most unhappy whenever it were explained to you, yet unable to prepare you for it in the least.— It was told me,—it was in a manner forced on me by the very person herself, whose prior engagement ruined all my prospects; and told me, as I thought, with triumph.— This person's suspicions, therefore, I have had to oppose, by endeavouring to appear indifferent where I have been most deeply interested;—and it has not been only once;—I have had her hopes and exultation to listen to again and again.— I have known myself to be divided from Edward for ever, without hearing one circumstance that could make me less desire the connection.—Nothing has proved him unworthy; nor has anything declared him indifferent to me.— I have had to contend against the unkindness of his sister, and the insolence of his mother; and have suffered the punishment of an attachment, without enjoying its advantages.— And all this has been going on at a time, when, as you know too well, it has not been my only unhappiness.— If you can think me capable of ever feeling—surely you may suppose that I have suffered NOW. The composure of mind with which I have brought myself at present to consider the matter, the consolation that I have been willing to admit, have been the effect of constant and painful exertion;—they did not spring up of themselves;—they did not occur to relieve my spirits at first.— No, Marianne.—THEN, if I had not been bound to silence, perhaps nothing could have kept me entirely—not even what I owed to my dearest friends—from openly shewing that I was VERY unhappy.
Jane Austen
It would be most right, and most wise, and, therefore must involve least suffering.
Jane Austen