Jane Austen

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.

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

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?

There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.

I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.

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

It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy; it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.

I wish as well as everybody else to be perfectly happy; but, like everybody else, it must be in my own way.

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

If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.

We all have our foibles, and are to be borne with in turn.

Selfishness must always be forgiven, you know, because there is no hope of a cure.

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody, not to perfect happiness, for that is denied to mortals, but to something like tolerable comfort and cheerful enjoyment.

There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.

Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.

I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other.

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

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

She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.