Quotes By Jane Austen

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.

One man's ways may be as good as another's, but we all like our own best.

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

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.

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

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

Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.

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

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

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

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

Respect for right conduct is felt by every body.

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain for the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.

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

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

Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a something of shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the latter.

Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor. Which is one very strong argument in favor of matrimony.

There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.

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

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

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

I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.

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

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

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

Those who do not complain are never pitied.

An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged; no harm can be done.

To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.

From politics, it was an easy step to silence.