Jane Austen quote: "<b>It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.</b>However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters."

Every savage can dance.
JANE AUSTEN

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

A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.
JANE AUSTEN

If things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next.
JANE AUSTEN

One man's style must not be the rule of another's.
JANE AUSTEN

My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conv...
JANE AUSTEN

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

Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and ...
JANE AUSTEN

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be...
JANE AUSTEN

Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.
JANE AUSTEN

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

To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.
JANE AUSTEN

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.
JANE AUSTEN

I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, wi...
JANE AUSTEN

I should think he must be rather a dressy man for his time of life. Such a number of looking-glasses...
JANE AUSTEN

What strange creatures brothers are!
JANE AUSTEN

...the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.
JANE AUSTEN

[I]f a book is well written, I always find it too short.
JANE AUSTEN

Angry people are not always wise.
JANE AUSTEN

I am worn out with civility. I have been talking incessantly all night, and with nothing to say. But...
JANE AUSTEN

The conversation soon turned upon fishing, and she heard Mr. Darcy invite him, with the greatest civ...
JANE AUSTEN

Words were insufficient for the elevation of his [Mr Collins'] feelings; and he was obliged to walk ...
JANE AUSTEN

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

I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than ...
JANE AUSTEN

Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.
JANE AUSTEN

Elizabeth had never been more at a loss to make her feelings appear what they were not. It was neces...
JANE AUSTEN

I have been used to consider poetry as "the food of love" said Darcy.

"Of a fine, stout, ...
JANE AUSTEN

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

We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked...
JANE AUSTEN

There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison
JANE AUSTEN

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

To wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect
JANE AUSTEN

There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My cour...
JANE AUSTEN

I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. N...
JANE AUSTEN

Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection.
JANE AUSTEN

I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is to...
JANE AUSTEN

There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, whic...
JANE AUSTEN

We are all fools in love
JANE AUSTEN

....how good Mrs. West could have written such books and collected so many hard works, with all her ...
JANE AUSTEN

What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited sketches, full of variety and glow? How could I p...
JANE AUSTEN

Here I am once more in this scene of dissipation and vice, and I begin already to find my morals cor...
JANE AUSTEN

Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. — It is not fair. — He has f...
JANE AUSTEN

I cannot help thinking that it is more natural to have flowers grow out of the head than fruit.
JANE AUSTEN

If I am a wild Beast I cannot help it. It is not my own fault.
JANE AUSTEN

I will not say that your mulberry trees are dead; but I am afraid they're not alive.
JANE AUSTEN

I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my lif...
JANE AUSTEN

To you I shall say, as I have often said before, Do not be in a hurry, the right man will come at la...
JANE AUSTEN

Is not general incivility the very essence of love?
JANE AUSTEN

The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really...
JANE AUSTEN

In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to te...
JANE AUSTEN

There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving peop...
JANE AUSTEN

To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plai...
JANE AUSTEN

Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last ...
JANE AUSTEN

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

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

It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage.
JANE AUSTEN

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.
JANE AUSTEN

A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.
JANE AUSTEN

Business, you know, may bring you money, but friendship hardly ever does.
JANE AUSTEN

From politics it was an easy step to silence.
JANE AUSTEN

There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.
JANE AUSTEN

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

Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced and the inconvenience is often considerab...
JANE AUSTEN

One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.
JANE AUSTEN

It is indolence... Indolence and love of ease; a want of all laudable ambition, of taste for good co...
JANE AUSTEN

It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, s...
JANE AUSTEN

I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than o...
JANE AUSTEN

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

One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, noth...
JANE AUSTEN

Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied.
JANE AUSTEN

Those who do not complain are never pitied.
JANE AUSTEN

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.
JANE AUSTEN

In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels.
JANE AUSTEN

I am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.
JANE AUSTEN

Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor. Which is one very strong argument in favor o...
JANE AUSTEN

What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.
JANE AUSTEN

With men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please, every feature works.
JANE AUSTEN

There are certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are of pretty woman t...
JANE AUSTEN

And I, Mr. Knightley, am equally stout in my confidence of its not doing them any harm. With all dea...
JANE AUSTEN

Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion,...
JANE AUSTEN

Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish prepara...
JANE AUSTEN

Where an opinion is general, it is usually correct.
JANE AUSTEN

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.
JANE AUSTEN

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

To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.
JANE AUSTEN

It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing...
JANE AUSTEN

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

. . . it is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether...
JANE AUSTEN

Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young perso...
JANE AUSTEN

You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have hear...
JANE AUSTEN

We do not look in our great cities for our best morality.
JANE AUSTEN

One has not great hopes from Birmingham. I always say there is something direful in the sound.
JANE AUSTEN

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be...
JANE AUSTEN

It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;-- it is disposition alone. Seven years ...
JANE AUSTEN

Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any othe...
JANE AUSTEN

I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel writers, of degrading by ...
JANE AUSTEN

My sore throats are always worse than anyone's.
JANE AUSTEN

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

I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed femal...
JANE AUSTEN

It was, perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides.
JANE AUSTEN

It is only poverty that makes celibacy contemptible. A single woman of good fortune is always respec...
JANE AUSTEN

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be i...
JANE AUSTEN

Well! Evil to some is always good to others.
JANE AUSTEN

Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considera...
JANE AUSTEN

There is hardly any personal defect which an agreeable manner might not gradually reconcile one to
JANE AUSTEN

In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels.
JANE AUSTEN

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

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well.The more I see of the ...
JANE AUSTEN

I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstan...
JANE AUSTEN

I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It...
JANE AUSTEN

What are men to rocks and mountains?
JANE AUSTEN

Watch your thoughts, for they become words.Watch your words, for they become actions.Watch your acti...
JANE AUSTEN

One may be continually abusive without saying any thing just; but one cannot be always laughing at...
JANE AUSTEN

It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before
JANE AUSTEN

Family connexions were always worth preserving, good company always worth seeking.
JANE AUSTEN

In every power, of which taste is the foundation, excellence is pretty fairly divided between the se...
JANE AUSTEN

There is hardly any personal defect which an agreeable manner might not gradually reconcile one to.
JANE AUSTEN

We certainly do not forget you as soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than our me...
JANE AUSTEN

I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead o...
JANE AUSTEN

When any two young people take it into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance to...
JANE AUSTEN

The only time I ever really suffered in body or mind, the only time that I ever fancied myself unwel...
JANE AUSTEN

Knowing their feelings as she did, it was a most attractive picture of happiness to her. She always ...
JANE AUSTEN

I would rather have young people settle on a small income at once, and have to struggle with a few d...
JANE AUSTEN

It has sunk him, I cannot say how much it has sunk him in my opinion. So unlike what a man should be...
JANE AUSTEN

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be i...
JANE AUSTEN

An agreeable manner may set off handsome features, but can never alter plain ones.
JANE AUSTEN

She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance - a misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they sho...
JANE AUSTEN

One cannot fix one's eyes on the commonest natural production without finding food for a rambling fa...
JANE AUSTEN

I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taug...
JANE AUSTEN

The distance is nothing when one has a motive.
JANE AUSTEN

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

A girl likes to be crossed a little in love now and then.
It is something to think of
JANE AUSTEN

My good opinion once lost is lost forever.
JANE AUSTEN

Till this moment I never knew myself.
JANE AUSTEN

He is a gentleman, and I am a gentleman's daughter. So far we are equal.
JANE AUSTEN

An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your...
JANE AUSTEN

From the very beginning— from the first moment, I may almost say— of my acquaintance with you, y...
JANE AUSTEN

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

You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell m...
JANE AUSTEN

I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with ...
JANE AUSTEN

I have not the pleasure of understanding you.
JANE AUSTEN

I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.
JANE AUSTEN

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the...
JANE AUSTEN

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste it's fragrance on the desert air.
JANE AUSTEN

Facts or opinions which are to pass through the hands of so many, to be misconceived by folly in one...
JANE AUSTEN

It was the misfortune of poetry to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and ...
JANE AUSTEN

An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her care...
JANE AUSTEN

I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.
JANE AUSTEN

There is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give ...
JANE AUSTEN

To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain for t...
JANE AUSTEN

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be i...
JANE AUSTEN

There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.
JANE AUSTEN

Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that s...
JANE AUSTEN

Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the m...
JANE AUSTEN

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

The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really...
JANE AUSTEN

What is right to be done cannot be done too soon.
JANE AUSTEN

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

There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.
JANE AUSTEN

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

A single woman with a very narrow income must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid - the proper sp...
JANE AUSTEN

The power of doing anything with quickness is always prized much by the possessor, and often without...
JANE AUSTEN

It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little t...
JANE AUSTEN

She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she wa...
JANE AUSTEN

Her tears fell abundantly--but her grief was so truly artless, that no dignity could have made it mo...
JANE AUSTEN

There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those two young men. One has got al...
JANE AUSTEN

Beware how you give your heart.
JANE AUSTEN

My idea of good company, Mr. Eliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great ...
JANE AUSTEN

Miss Bingley's congratulations to her brother, on his approaching marriage, were all that was affect...
JANE AUSTEN

You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any oth...
JANE AUSTEN

Do not give way to useless alarm; though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occas...
JANE AUSTEN

Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say...
JANE AUSTEN

The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen o...
JANE AUSTEN

We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.
JANE AUSTEN

It is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these...
JANE AUSTEN

How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!
JANE AUSTEN

Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
JANE AUSTEN

General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be.
JANE AUSTEN

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...I have loved none but you.
JANE AUSTEN

Woe betide him, and her too, when it comes to things of consequence, when they are placed in circums...
JANE AUSTEN

Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.
JANE AUSTEN

It's been many years since I had such an exemplary vegetable.
JANE AUSTEN

I will be calm. I will be mistress of myself.
JANE AUSTEN

My dear, dear aunt,' she rapturously cried, what delight! what felicity! You give me fresh life and ...
JANE AUSTEN

One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it
JANE AUSTEN

But above all, above respect and esteem, there was a motive within her of good will which could not ...
JANE AUSTEN

Aunque me dieras cuarenta hombres como él, nunca sería tan feliz como tú. Mientras no posea tu bu...
JANE AUSTEN

It was gratitude; gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well eno...
JANE AUSTEN

You may ask questions which I shall not choose to answer.
JANE AUSTEN

It's a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in...
JANE AUSTEN

My object then," replied Darcy, "was to show you, by every civility in my power, that I was not so m...
JANE AUSTEN

Vanity, not love, has been my folly.
JANE AUSTEN

They parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a mutual desire of never meeting again.
JANE AUSTEN

She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most ...
JANE AUSTEN

She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should ...
JANE AUSTEN

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

I am excessively diverted.
JANE AUSTEN

Nothing is more deceitful," said Darcy, "than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessn...
JANE AUSTEN

Every thing nourishes what is strong already.
JANE AUSTEN

It is not everyone,' said Elinor, 'who has your passion for dead leaves.
JANE AUSTEN

Jane Austen

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