Jane Austen
I will not allow it to be more man's nature than woman's to be inconstant.Collection: Men
She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she was not wise yet.Collection: Wise
Pray, pray be composed, and do not betray what you feel to every body presentCollection: Body
A novel must show how the world truly is. Somehow, reveals the true source of our actions.Collection: World
Here I have opportunity enough for the exercise of my talent, as the chief of my time is spent in conversation.Collection: Exercise
A lucky guess is never merely luck. There is always some talent in it.Collection: Luck
Where the heart is really attached, I know very well how little one can be pleased with the attention of any body else.Collection: Heart
You have qualities which I had not before supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you.Collection: Angel
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.Collection: Selfish
Portable property is happiness in a pocketbook.Collection: Pocketbooks
Without scheming to do wrong, or to make others unhappy, there may be error and there may be misery. Thoughtlessness, want of attention to other people's feelings, and want of resolution, will do the business.Collection: Errors
[I]t is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible.Collection: Happiness
I have frequently detected myself in such kind of mistakes... in a total misapprehension of character at some point or other: fancying people so much more gay or grave, or ingenious or stupid than they really are, and I can hardly tell why, or in what the deception originated. Sometimes one is guided by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge.Collection: Mistake
Fine dancing, I believe, like virtue, must be its own reward.Collection: Dance
I have read your book, and I disapprove.Collection: Book
There is no reason in the world why you should not be important where you are known. You have good sense, and a sweet temper, and I am sure you have a grateful heart, that could never receive kindness without hoping to return it. I do not know any better qualifications for a friend and companion.Collection: Sweet
If any young men come for Mary or Kitty, send them in, for I am quite as leisure.Collection: Men
Incline us oh God! to think humbly of ourselves, to be severe only in the examination of our own conduct, to consider our fellow-creatures with kindness, and to judge of all they say and do with that charity which we would desire from them ourselves.Collection: Kindness
Pride... 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 the other, real or imaginary. 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.Collection: Real
If a woman is partial to a man, and does not endeavour to conceal it, he must find it out." -ElizabethCollection: Men
I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth.Collection: Art
Pity is for this life, pity is the worm inside the meat, pity is the meat, pity is the shaking pencil, pity is the shaking voice-- not enough money, not enough love--pity for all of us--it is our grace, walking down the ramp or on the moving sidewalk, sitting in a chair, reading the paper, pity, turning a leaf to the light, arranging a thorn.Collection: Moving
I certainly must,' said she. 'This sensation of listlessness, weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself, this feeling of everything's being dull and insipid about the house! I must be in love; I should be the oddest creature in the world if I were not.Collection: House
An agreeable manner may set off handsome features, but can never alter plain ones.Collection: Beauty
I will be calm. I will be mistress of myself.Collection: Mistress
You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. -Mr. DarcyCollection: Romantic
To be sure you know no actual good of me, but nobody thinks of that when they fall in love.Collection: Falling In Love
We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the eclat of a proverb.Collection: Rooms
At my time of life opinions are tolerably fixed. It is not likely that I should now see or hear anything to change them.Collection: Life
I have always maintained the importance of AuntsCollection: Aunt
Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?" Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be entirely silent for half an hour together, and yet for the advantage of some, conversation ought to be so arranged as that they may have the trouble of saying as little as possible.Collection: Dancing
Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride - where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation.Collection: Real
I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be moreCollection: Sorry
An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.Collection: Mother
I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much likeCollection: Heroines
I am not born to sit still and do nothing. If I lose the game, it shall not be from not striving for it.Collection: Games
I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him.Collection: Men
Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge." -Elinor DashwoodCollection: People
Facts or opinions which are to pass through the hands of so many, to be misconceived by folly in one, and ignorance in another, can hardly have much truth left.Collection: Ignorance
I am rather impatient to know the fate of my best gown.Collection: Fate
Five is the very awkwardest of all posible numbers to sit down to table.Collection: Numbers
You expect me to account for opinions which you choose to call mine, but which I have never acknowledged.Collection: Opinion
You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...I have loved none but you.Collection: Love
What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps one in a continual state of inelegance.Collection: Summer
One cannot have too large a party. A large party secures its own amusement.Collection: Party
I trust that absolutes have gradations.Collection: Extremes
Let us have the luxury of silence.Collection: Luxury
With women, the heart argues, not the mind.Collection: Women
I go too long without picking up a good book, I feel like I've done nothing useful with my life.Collection: Book