Sense & Sensibility Quotes

“No; my feelings are not often shared, not often understood. But sometimes they are.”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“A mighty concession indeed! If you were to see them at the altar, you would suppose they were going to be married”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate. She was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her conduct, her most favourite maxims. She was born to overcome an affection formed so late in life as at seventeen, and with no sentiment superior to strong esteem and lively friendship, voluntarily to give her hand to another! - and that other, a man who had suffered no less than herself under the event of a former attachment, - whom, two years before, she had considered too old to be married, - and who still sought the constitutional safeguard of a flannel waistcoat!”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“For though a very few hours spent in hard labour of incessant talking will dispatch more subjects than can really be in common between any two rational creatures, yet with lovers it is different. Between them no subject is finished, no communication is even made, till it has been made at least twenty times over.”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“The world had made him extravagant and vain – extravagance and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish. Vanity, while seeking its own guilty triumph at the expense of another, had involved him in a real attachment, which extravagance, or at least its offspring necessity, had required to be sacrificed. Each faulty propensity in leading him to evil, had led him likewise to punishment.”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“″though where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“Elinor had not needed this to be assured of the injustice to which her sister was often led in her opinion of others, by the irritable refinement of her own mind, and the too great importance placed by her on the delicacies of a strong sensibility and the graces of a polished manner. Like half the rest of the world, if more than half there be that are clever and good, Marianne, with excellent abilities and an excellent disposition, was neither reasonable nor candid. She expected from other people the same opinions and feelings as her own, and she judged of their motives by the immediate effect of their actions on herself.”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“Nothing in the way of pleasure can ever be given up by the young men of this age.”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“When a young man, be he who he will, comes and makes love to a pretty girl, and promises marriage, he has no business to fly off from his word, only because he grows poor, and a richer girl is ready to have him. Why don't he, in such a case, sell his horses, let his house, turn off his servants, and make a thorough reform at once.”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“He listened to her with silent attention, and on her ceasing to speak, rose directly from his seat, and after saying in a voice of emotion, 'To your sister I wish all imaginable happiness; to Willoughby, that he may endeavour to deserve her,' took leave, and went away.”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“We have neither of us anything to tell; you, because you do not communicate, and I, because I conceal nothing.”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“A fond mother, though, in pursuit of praise for her children, the most rapacious of human beings, is likewise the most credulous; her demands are exorbitant; but she will swallow anything.”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“Sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in but what was worn and hackneyed out of all sense and meaning.”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“At my time of life, opinions are tolerably fixed. It is not likely that I should now see or hear anything to change them.”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“My loose cash, would certainly be employed in improving my collection of music and books.”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“And books! Thomson, Cowper, Scott — she would buy them all over and over again; she would buy up every copy, I believe, to prevent their falling into unworthy hands; and she would have every book that tells her how to admire an old twisted tree.”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“I will not torment myself any longer by remaining among friends whose society it is impossible to enjoy.”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“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.”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“When the romantic refinements of a young mind are obliged to give way, how frequently are they succeeded by such opinions as are but too common and too dangerous!”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“When he was present she had no eyes for anyone else. Everything he did was right. Everything he said was clever. If their evenings at the Park were concluded with cards, he cheated himself and all the rest of the party to get her a good hand. If dancing formed the amusement of the night, they were partners for half the time; and when obliged to separate for a couple of dances, were careful to stand together, and scarcely spoke a word to anybody else. Such conduct made them, of course, most exceedingly laughed at; but ridicule could not shame, and seemed hardly to provoke them.”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“He then departed, to make himself still more interesting, in the midst of a heavy rain.”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“I think him everything that is worthy and amiable.”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility

“He was not handsome, and his manners required intimacy to make them pleasing. He was too diffident to do justice to himself; but when his natural shyness was overcome, his behaviour gave every indication of an open, affectionate heart.”
― Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility