Jane Austen Quotes

“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.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Angry people are not always wise.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.”
― Jane Austen

“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.'
'You are mistaken,' said he gently, 'that is not good company, that is the best.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“How I wish I lived in a Jane Austen novel!”
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

“Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing after all.”
― Jane Austen

“Let us never underestimate the power of a well-written letter.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

“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.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

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

"For the liveliness of your mind, I did.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“No man is offended by another man's admiration of the woman he loves; it is the woman only who can make it a torment.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“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.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“It is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are they the result of previous study?”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“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.”
― Jane Austen, Emma

“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 characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“You either choose this method of passing the evening because you are in each other's confidence, and have secret affairs to discuss, or because you are conscious that your figures appear to the greatest advantage in walking;— if the first, I should be completely in your way, and if the second, I can admire you much better as I sit by the fire.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does.”
― Jane Austen, Emma

“Anyone who has the temerity to write about Jane Austen is aware of [two] facts: first, that of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness; second, that there are twenty-five elderly gentlemen living in the neighbourhood of London who resent any slight upon her genius as if it were an insult to the chastity of their aunts.”
― Virginia Woolf , A Room of One's Own

“Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.”
― Mark Twain

“For [Jane Austen and the readers of Pride and Prejudice], as for Mr. Darcy, [Elizabeth Bennett's] solitary walks express the independence that literally takes the heroine out of the social sphere of the houses and their inhabitants, into a larger, lonelier world where she is free to think: walking articulates both physical and mental freedom.”
― Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

“To me [Edgar Allan Poe's] prose is unreadable—like Jane Austin's [sic]. No there is a difference. I could read his prose on salary, but not Jane's. Jane is entirely impossible. It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.”
― Mark Twain

“I have the highest respect for your nerves, they are my old friends.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it.”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“...the more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”
― Mark Twain

“My object then," replied Darcy, "was to show you, by every civility in my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you see that your reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes introduced themselves I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an hour after I had seen you.”
― Jane Austen

“One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering. ”
― Jane Austen

“She was suddenly roused by the sound of the door-bell, and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of its being Colonel Fitzwilliam himself, who had once before called late in the evening, and might now come to inquire particularly after her. But this idea was soon banished, and her spirits were very differently affected, when, to her utter amazement, she saw Mr. Darcy walk into the room. In an hurried manner he immediately began an inquiry after her health, imputing his visit to a wish of hearing that she were better. She answered him with cold civility. He sat down for a few moments, and then getting up, walked about the room. Elizabeth was surprised, but said not a word. After a silence of several minutes, he came towards her in an agitated manner, and thus began:

"In vain I have 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.”
― Jane Austen

“Whom are you going to dance with?' asked Mr. Knightley.
She hesitated a moment and then replied, 'With you, if you will ask me.'
Will you?' said he, offering his hand.
Indeed I will. You have shown that you can dance, and you know we are not really so much brother and sister as to make it at all improper.'
Brother and sister! no, indeed.”
― Jane Austen

“This is an evening of wonders, indeed!”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice