Quotes from works by Jane Austen (part 1)

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

Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her.

My good opinion once lost is lost forever.

I certainly have not the talent which some people possess of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.

In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.

You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.

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. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family circle; to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.

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

I am determined that only the deepest love will induce me into matrimony. So, I shall end an old maid, and teach your ten children to embroider cushions and play their instruments very ill.

There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.

There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.

I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.

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.

Till this moment I never knew myself.

Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.

Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.

Now be sincere; did you admire me for my impertinence?

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

I have not the pleasure of understanding you.

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.

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.

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.

This sweetest and best of all creatures, faultless in spite of all her faults.

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

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.

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

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

Why not seize the pleasure at once? — How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!

You must be the best judge of your own happiness.

Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise.

I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.

Mr. Knightley, if I have not spoken, it is because I am afraid I will awaken myself from this dream.

Better be without sense than misapply it as you do. 

Vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief.

Badly done, Emma!

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

I cannot make speeches, Emma…If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it.

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

His cold politeness, his ceremonious grace, were worse than anything

She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.

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

How quick come the reasons for approving what we like.

Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. 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.

…when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.

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!

Let us never underestimate the power of a well-written letter.

I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. 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. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.

I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father’s house this evening or never.

Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death.