Jane Austen Quotes

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.

Respect for right conduct is felt by every body.

A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.

If things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next.

I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.

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

A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.

What wild imaginations one forms where dear self is concerned! How sure to be mistaken!

Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.

Those who do not complain are never pitied.

To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.

Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then.

From politics, it was an easy step to silence.

There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.

One man's style must not be the rule of another's.

How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.

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.

To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.

Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.

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.

My sore throats are always worse than anyone's.

Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.

It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage.

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

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.

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.

I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.

An artist cannot do anything slovenly.

There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.

Where an opinion is general, it is usually correct.

I am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.

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

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

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

Dress is at all times a frivolous distinction, and excessive solicitude about it often destroys its own aim.

There are certainly not so many men of large fortune in the world, as there are pretty women to deserve them.

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

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.

There is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions.

The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.

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

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

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?

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.

One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering.

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