Jane Austen

I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.

My idea of good company, Mr. Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.

All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, you need not covet it) is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever.

A man would always wish to make a good impression upon a woman he was seriously paying his addresses to.

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

I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.

Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint.

It is not what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.

Affectation of candour is common enough—one meets with it everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design—to take the good of everybody's character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad—belongs to you alone.

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

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.

The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.

Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then. It is something to think of, and gives her a sort of distinction among her companions.

To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look at the green landscape, with the cheerful sound of a waterfall, and the scent of a honeysuckle, is a great happiness.

Where the heart is, there the treasure is.

It is not every man who has a talent for great things. And still less every woman.

I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child, I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit.

There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.