Jane Austen

“What have wealth or grandeur to do with happiness?" Grandeur has but little," said Elinor, "but wealth has much to do with it." Elinor, for shame!" Said Marianne. "Money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it...”

“Now be sincere; did you admire me for my impertinence?""For the liveliness of your mind, I did.”

“Could there be finer symptoms? Is not general incivility the very essence of love?”

“I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my life, & if it were indispensable for me to keep it up & never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No - I must keep my own style & go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.”

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

“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.”

“You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. I roused, and interested you, because I was so unlike them.”

“I am not fond of the idea of my shrubberies being always approachable.”

“She tried to explain the real state of the case to her sister."I do not attempt to deny," said she, "that I think very highly of him--that I greatly esteem, that I like him."Marianne here burst with forth with indignation:"Esteem him! Like him! Cold-hearted Elinor. Oh! worse than cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise. Use those words again, and I will leave the room this moment."Elinor could not help laughing. "Excuse me," said she, "and be assured that I meant no offence to you, by speaking, in so quiet a way, of my own feelings.”

“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.”

“If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out.”

“for I have often observed that resignation is never so perfect as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its value is our estimation.”

“And what am I to do on the occasion? -- It seems an hopeless business.”

“I am sorry to tell you that I am getting very extravagant and spending all my money: and what is worse for you, I have been spending yours too. ”

“But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them.”

“If you were to give me forty such men, I never could be so happy as you. Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your happiness. No, no, let me shift for myself; and, perhaps, if I have very good luck, I may meet with another Mr. Collins in time.”

“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.”

“I am now convinced that I have never been much in love; for had I really experienced that pure and elevating passion, I should at present detest his very name, and wish him all manner of evil. But my feelings are not only cordial towards him; they are even impartial towards her. I cannot find out that I hate her at all, or that I am in the least unwilling to think her a very good sort of girl. There can be no love in all this.”

“No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be a heroine... But from fifteen to seventeen she was in training for a heroine...”

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

“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.”

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

“Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.”

“for he is such a disagreeable man, that it would be quite a misfortune to be liked by him.”

“She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me, and I am in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.”

“I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.”

“All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one: you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone!”

“How quick come the reasons for approving what we like.”

“There was no being displeased with such an encourager, for his admiration made him discern a likeness before it was possible.”

“How despicably I have acted!" she cried; "I, who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameable mistrust! How humiliating is this discovery! Yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our aquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment I never knew myself.”

“Men of sense, whatever you may choose to say, do not want silly wives.”

“Vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief.”

“I have not the pleasure of understanding you.”

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

“I . . . am always half afraid of finding a clever novel too clever--& of finding my own story & my own people all forestalled.”

“I am not at all in a humor for writing; I must write on till I am.”

“Good God! Willloughby, what is the meaning of this?" -Marianne Dashwood”

“A man," said he, "must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks people to leave their own fireside, and encounter such a day as this, for the sake of coming to see him. He must think himself a most agreeable fellow; I could not do such a thing. It is the greatest absurdity--Actually snowing at this moment!--The folly of not allowing people to be comfortable at home--and the folly of people's not staying comfortably at home when they can!”

“Dear Diary, Today I tried not to think about Mr. Knightly. I tried not to think about him when I discussed the menu with Cook... I tried not to think about him in the garden where I thrice plucked the petals off a daisy to acertain his feelings for Harriet. I don't think we should keep daisies in the garden, they really are a drab little flower. And I tried not to think about him when I went to bed, but something had to be done.”

“Badly done, Emma!”

“Better be without sense than misapply it as you do. ”

“Mr. Knightley, if I have not spoken, it is because I am afraid I will awaken myself from this dream.”

“I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control. ”

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

“But your mind is warped by an innate principle of general integrity, and, therefore, not accessible to the cool reasonings of family partiality, or a desire of revenge.”

“The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance.”

“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.”

“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?”

“A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.”

“I can easily believe it. Women of that class have great opportunities, and if they are intelligent may be well worth listening to. Such varieites of human nature as they are in the habit of witnessing! And it is not merely in its follies, that they are read; for they see it occasionally under every circumstance that can be most interesting or affecting. What instances must pass before them of ardent, disinterested, self-denying attachment, of heroism, fortitude, patience, resignation-- of all the sacrifices that ennoble us most. A sick chamber may often furnish the worth of volumes.”