Jane Austen Quotes

Where the heart is really attached, I know very well how little one can be pleased with the attention of any body else.

It is not every man's fate to marry the woman who loves him best

You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.

I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor their offences against myself...My good opinion once lost is lost forever. - Fitzwilliam Darcy

I am excessively fond of a cottage; there is always so much comfort, so much elegance about them. And I protest, if I had any money to spare, I should buy a little land and build one myself, within a short distance of London, where I might drive myself down at any time, and collect a few friends about me and be happy. I advise everybody who is going to build, to build a cottage.

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

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.

People always live forever when there is an annuity to be paid them.

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

From the very beginning — from the first moment, I may almost say — of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.

Of various admirals I could tell you a great deal: of them and their flags, and the gradation of their pay, and their bickerings and jealousies. But, in general, I can assure you that they are all passed over, and all very ill used. Certainly, my home at my uncle’s brought me acquainted with a circle of admirals. Of Rears and Vices I saw enough. Now do not be suspecting me of a pun, I entreat.

..that sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself

"I shall soon be rested," said Fanny; "to sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure, is the most perfect refreshment."

Heaven forbid! — That would be the greatest misfortune of all! — To find a man agreeable whom one is determined to hate! — Do not wish me such an evil.

It is not what we think or feel that makes us who we are. It is what we do. Or fail to do...