Jane Austen was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen’s plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favorable social standing and economic security. Here are some Jane Austen quotes that will motivate you.
“I come here with no expectations, only to profess, now that I am at liberty to do so, that my heart is and always will be yours.”
“Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.”
“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.”
“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
“I wish, as well as everybody else, to be perfectly happy; but, like everybody else, it must be in my own way.”
“I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.”
“A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.”
“Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.”
“How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!”
“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 enthusiasm of a woman’s love is even beyond the biographer’s.”
“What are men to rocks and mountains?”
“There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time.”
“But remember that the pain of parting from friends will be felt by everybody at times, whatever be their education or state. Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience; or give it a more fascinating name: call it hope.”
“To love is to burn, to be on fire.”
“But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever.”
“But to appear happy when I am so miserable — Oh! who can require it?”
“We do not suffer by accident.”
“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.”
“There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. 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.”
“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.”
“Sitting with her on Sunday evening — a wet Sunday evening — the very time of all others when if a friend is at hand the heart must be opened, and every thing told”
“Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions. A large bulky figure has a good a right to be in deep affliction, as the most graceful set of limbs in the world. But, fair or not fair, there are unbecoming conjunctions, which reason will pa tronize in vain,–which taste cannot tolerate,–which ridicule will seize.”
“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.”
“To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.”
“Fine dancing, I believe like virtue, must be its own reward. Those who are standing by are usually thinking of something very different.”
“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.”
“Dress is at all times a frivolous distinction, and excessive solicitude about it often destroys its own aim.”
“But indeed I would rather have nothing but tea.”
“They are much to be pitied who have not been given a taste for nature early in life.”
“You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”
“Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.”
“Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.”
“We are all fools in love”
“I certainly must,’ said she. ‘This sensation of listlessness, weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself, this feeling of everything’s being dull and insipid about the house! I must be in love; I should be the oddest creature in the world if I were not.”
“I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.”
“I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh.”
“Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied.”
“Everybody likes to go their own ways to choose their own time and manner of devotion.”
“Now they were as strangers; nay worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted.”
“Her eye fell everywhere on lawns and plantations of the freshest green; and the trees, though not fully clothed, were in that delightful state when farther beauty is known to be at hand, and when, while much is actually given to the sight, more yet remains for the imagination.”
“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 and a half years ago. Dare not say that a 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.”
“When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable If I have not an excellent library.”
“I cannot think well of a man who sports with any woman’s feelings; and there may often be a great deal more suffered than a stander-by can judge of.”
“An artist cannot do anything slovenly.”
“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!”
“She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.”
“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.”
“but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.”
“And now I may dismiss my heroine to the sleepless couch, which is the true heroine’s portion – to a pillow strewed with thorns and wet with tears. And lucky may she think herself, if she get another good night’s rest in the course of the next three months.”
“I was quiet but I was not blind.”
“Every moment has its pleasures and its hope.”
“Why not seize the pleasure at once? — How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!”
“It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before.”
“Oh! do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.”
“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.”
“One man’s ways may be as good as another’s, but we all like our own best.”
“A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.”
“My good opinion once lost is lost forever.”
“Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody.”
“A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.”
“Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.”
“Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.”
“I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.”
“A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.”
“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.”
“Those who do not complain are never pitied.”
“One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering.”
“Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.”
“Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.”
“They parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a mutual desire of never meeting again.”
“In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels.”
“Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then.”
“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?”
“Good-humored, unaffected girls, will not do for a man who has been used to sensible women. They are two distinct orders of being.”
“Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.”
“Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.”
“Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.”
“The more I see of the world, the more am i dissatisfied with it; and everyday confirms my belief of the inconsistencies of all human.”
“Look into your own heart because who looks outside, dreams, but who looks inside awakes.”
“No young lady can be justified in falling in love before the gentleman’s love is declared, it must be very improper that a young lady should dream of a gentleman before the gentleman is first known to have dreamt of her.”
“I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.”
“From politics it was an easy step to silence.”
“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope…I have loved none but you.”
“You must be the best judge of your own happiness.”
Amazing quotes by Jane Austen
“I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.”
“To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.”
“I can always live by my pen.”
“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.”
“And pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked.”
“I have not wanted syllables where actions have spoken so plainly.”
“The Very first moment I beheld him, my heart was irrevocably gone.”
“I have been used to consider poetry as “the food of love” said Darcy. “Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.”
“Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.”
“Without music, life would be a blank to me.”
“They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.”
“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.”
“Indulge your imagination in every possible flight.”
“Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness.”
“What! Would I be turned back from doing a thing that I had determined to do, and that I knew to be right, by the airs and interference of such a person, or any person I may say? No, I have no idea of being so easily persuaded. When I have made up my mind, I have made it.”
“I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman’s inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman’s fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.”
“She was humbled, she was grieved; she repented, though she hardly knew of what. She became jealous of his esteem, when she could no longer hope to be benefited by it. She wanted to hear of him, when there seemed the least chance of gaining intelligence. She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should meet.”
“I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth.”
“Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you.”
“Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion.”
“If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.”
“Oh! I am delighted with the book! I should like to spend my whole life in reading it.”
“my courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.”
“How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book!”
“A fondness for reading, properly directed, must be an education in itself.”
“It’s such a happiness when good people get together.”
“The distance is nothing when one has a motive.”
“He is a gentleman, and I am a gentleman’s daughter. So far we are equal.”
“To you I shall say, as I have often said before, Do not be in a hurry, the right man will come at last…”
“What is right to be done cannot be done too soon.”
“A man does not recover from such devotion of the heart to such a woman! He ought not; he does not.”
“There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison”
“I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.”
“I will only add, God bless you.”
“It is only a novel… or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language”
“Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply…”
“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
“Nothing ever fatigues me, but doing what I do not like.”
“She denied none of it aloud, and agreed to none of it in private.”
“There could have never been two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved. Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement.”
“I am excessively diverted.”
“What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.”
“To wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect”
“Sometimes the last person on earth you want to be with is the one person you can’t be without.”
“Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint!”
“I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.”
“She was sensible and clever, but eager in everything; her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation.”
“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 do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
“Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise.”
“I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other.”
“The longer they were together the more doubtful seemed the nature of his regard, and sometimes for a few painful minutes she believed it to be no more than friendship”
“A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”
“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.”
“Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience- or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.”
“There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.”
“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.”
“Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.”
“I will be calm. I will be mistress of myself.”
“It isn’t what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.”
“Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.”
“Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.”
“Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first?”
“Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing after all.”
“If I could but know his heart, everything would become easy.”
“There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere.”
“I am not at all in a humor for writing; I must write on till I am.”
“Better be without sense than misapply it as you do.”
“Know your own happiness.”
Best of Jane Austen quotes
“And sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in.”
“Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody not greatly in fault themselves to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest.”
“Angry people are not always wise.”
“Let us have the luxury of silence.”
“…when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.”
“It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us.”
“The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it.”
“I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be more”
“She had a lively, playful disposition that delighted in anything ridiculous.”
“Men of sense, whatever you may choose to say, do not want silly wives.”
“It is very difficult for the prosperous to be humble.”
Life quotes by jane Austen
“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”
“Perhaps it is our imperfections that make us so perfect for one another.”
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighborhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of someone or other of their daughters.”
“I do not think it worth while to wait for enjoyment until there is some real opportunity for it.”
“How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind!”
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
“for he is such a disagreeable man, that it would be quite a misfortune to be liked by him.”
“One man’s style must not be the rule of another’s.”
“One cannot fix one’s eyes on the commonest natural production without finding food for a rambling fancy.”
“One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.”
“Our scars make us know that our past was for real”
“It is not every man’s fate to marry the woman who loves him best”
“Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection.”
“We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.”
“To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.”
“The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.”
“Do not give way to useless alarm; though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain.”
“Everybody has their taste in noises as well as in other matters.”