55 Timeless Jane Austen Quotes

Jane Austen's novels have captured the hearts and minds of readers for over two centuries, offering timeless insights into the human condition wrapped in wit and charm. Whether you're a long-time admirer or new to her work, Jane Austen's words possess a unique ability to resonate across generations, offering wisdom, humor, and keen observations about society, love, and morality. In this post, we've gathered a selection of the most iconic and enduring quotes from her beloved novels. Each one reflects the enduring brilliance of her storytelling and the relevance of her observations about life and human nature. Dive into these captivating snippets of Austen's wisdom and discover why her words continue to inspire and delight readers around the world.

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

2. “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

3. “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.” - Jane Austen

4. “It has the permanent quality of literature.” - Virginia Woolf

5. “Jane Austen, who is said to be Shakespearian, never reminds us of Shakespeare, I think, in her full-dress portraits, but she does so in characters such as Miss Bates and Mrs. Allen.” - A.C. Bradley

6. “Charlotte Palmer is no sillier than Harriet Smith; and yet, how intolerable we should find it to see and hear as much of Charlotte as we do of Harriet! And would Miss Bates have been endurable if she had been presented in the mood and manners of Sense and Sensibility? ” - Mary Lascelles

7. “Sympathy compounded of liking and compassion in varying proportions evidently seemed to Jane Austen the most natural inventive to imaginative interest in a character.” - Mary Lascelles

8. “How I wish I lived in a Jane Austen novel!” - Dodie Smith

9. “But some characters in books are really real--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage.” - Dodie Smith

10. “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

11. “There is a monsterous deal of stupid quizzing, & common-place nonsense talked, but scarcely any wit.” - Jane Austen

12. “Lady Catherine quoting Lizzie Bennet:She had the impudence to reply that, whilst these would be heavy misfortunes, your wife must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily attached to her situation, that she could, upon the whole, have no cause to repine.” - Janet Aylmer

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

14. “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

15. “I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen's novels at so high a rate, which seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in their wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow. ... All that interests in any character [is this]: has he (or she) the money to marry with? ... Suicide is more respectable.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

16. “I think it's degrading of you, Flora,' cried Mrs Smiling at breakfast. 'Do you truly mean that you don't ever want to work at anything?'Her friend replied after some thought: 'Well, when I am fifty-three or so I would like to write a novel as good as "Persuasion", but with a modern setting, of course. For the next thirty years or so I shall be collecting material for it. If anyone asks me what I work at, I shall say "Collecting material." No one can object to that. Besides, I shall be.'Mrs Smiling drank some coffee in silent disapproval.'If you ask me,' continued Flora, 'I think I have much in common with Miss Austen. She liked everything to be tidy and pleasant and comfortable around her, and so do I. You see Mary,' - and here Flora began to grow earnest and to wave one finger about - 'unless everything is tidy and pleasant and comfortable all about one, people cannot even begin to enjoy life. I cannot endure messes.” - Stella Gibbons

17. “As he talked, I watched Emma and wondered what is to become of her. She is of an age to be married but she spends her time with people who are so much older than she, that she is never likely to meet a husband. And if she does, I do not know if she will wish to marry. She is too comfortable where she is. Her father is easy to please and she can do as she likes with the household. A husband will have his own views, and Emma is not likely to take to that way of living.” - Amanda Grange

18. “To a good man, yes, one who knows her in all her moods, who can laugh at her follies and rejoice in her virtues; who will not allow her to give in to her worst instincts; one who knows her, and who, knowing her, will still love her, and love her as she should be loved.” - Amanda Grange

19. “It was as easy as breathing to go and have tea near the place where Jane Austen had so wittily scribbled and so painfully died. One of the things that causes some critics to marvel at Miss Austen is the laconic way in which, as a daughter of the epoch that saw the Napoleonic Wars, she contrives like a Greek dramatist to keep it off the stage while she concentrates on the human factor. I think this comes close to affectation on the part of some of her admirers. Captain Frederick Wentworth in Persuasion, for example, is partly of interest to the female sex because of the 'prize' loot he has extracted from his encounters with Bonaparte's navy. Still, as one born after Hiroshima I can testify that a small Hampshire township, however large the number of names of the fallen on its village-green war memorial, is more than a world away from any unpleasantness on the European mainland or the high or narrow seas that lie between. (I used to love the detail that Hampshire's 'New Forest' is so called because it was only planted for the hunt in the late eleventh century.) I remember watching with my father and brother through the fence of Stanstead House, the Sussex mansion of the Earl of Bessborough, one evening in the early 1960s, and seeing an immense golden meadow carpeted entirely by grazing rabbits. I'll never keep that quiet, or be that still, again.This was around the time of countrywide protest against the introduction of a horrible laboratory-confected disease, named 'myxomatosis,' into the warrens of old England to keep down the number of nibbling rodents. Richard Adams's lapine masterpiece Watership Down is the remarkable work that it is, not merely because it evokes the world of hedgerows and chalk-downs and streams and spinneys better than anything since The Wind in the Willows, but because it is only really possible to imagine gassing and massacre and organized cruelty on this ancient and green and gently rounded landscape if it is organized and carried out against herbivores.” - Christopher Hitchens

20. “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

21. “I cannot say much for this Monarch's Sense--Nor would I if I could, for he was a Lancastrian. I suppose you know all about the Wars between him and the Duke of York who was on the right side; if you do not, you had better read some other History, for I shall not be very difuse in this, meaning by it only to vent my spleen against, and show my Hatred to all those people whose parties or principles do not suit with mine, and not to give information.” - Jane Austen

22. “I would self-medicate with fat, carbohydrates, and Jane Austen, my number one drug of choice, my constant companion through every breakup, every disappointment, every crisis. Men might come and go, but Jane Austen was always there in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, till death do us part.” - Laurie Viera Rigler

23. “Did you think of anything when Miss Marcy said Scoatney Hall was being re-opened? I thought of the beginning of Pride and Prejudice – where Mrs. Bennet says 'Netherfield Park is let a last.' And then Mr. Bennet goes over to call on the rich new owner.” - Dodie Smith

24. “And so ended his affection," said Elizabeth impatiently. "There hasbeen many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who firstdiscovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!""I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love," said Darcy.” - Jane Austen

25. “No! Thank you for thinking I am thoughtful.” - Jane Austen

26. “The celestial brightness of Pride and Prejudice is unequalled even in Jane Austen's other work; after a life of much disappointment and grief, in which some people would have seen nothing but tedium and emptiness, she stepped forth as an author, breathing gaiety and youth, robed in dazzling light.” - Elizabeth Jenkins

27. “The milk of human kindness was kept often in the larder, and the tea served with lemon.” - John Halperin

28. “I couldn't exactly blame Jane Austen for being a romantic. What the hell else was there to do back then for fun?” - Kristin Walker

29. “I seem finally to have stopped worrying about Elinor, and age. She seems now to be perfectly normal -- about twenty-five, a witty control freak. I like her but I can see how she would drive you mad. She's just the sort of person you'd want to get drunk, just to make her giggling and silly.” - Emma Thompson

30. “Pride," observed Mary, who piqued herself upon the solidity of her reflections, "is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it it very common indeed; that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or the other, real or imaginary. 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 other think of us.” - Jane Austen

31. “What could she have done? She was a heroine, and with that came certain obligations.” - Emily C.A. Snyder

32. “Another strike of lightening – now accompanied by the deep-bellied rumble, and the horse reared, incidentally setting Henry very picturesquely against the inconstant moon. Alas, Catherine was deeply engaged in her argument with Old Edric and this missed entirely the melodramatic display. But we may assume that, possessing so strong an imagination, Catherine had often pictured Henry thus...” - Emily C.A. Snyder

33. “But neither could compare with the gargantuan natural edifice that was the mountain upon which Nachtstürm Castle rose. It was a mountain made of the darkness between two lightning bolts. It was made less of earth than Stygian frost. Whole towns fell away as they ascended, as though the ranks of black and frowning conifers waged war against the humans below. Even the path – rather narrow and rarely straight – seemed less made by centuries of pilgrim feet and more by the trace of some careless demon’s claw.It was, in fact, perfect.” - Emily C.A. Snyder

34. “Make haste” Jane added, just because she always wanted to say that.” - Shannon Hale

35. “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

36. “Before I could reply, he had picked me up, literally swept me off my feet, and kissed me. And afterwards, when I tried to speak, he silenced me in much the same manner. It was a shock (but not at all distasteful) to be so caught up. Later - when he at last set me down - he handled me more gently. He took of my glasses and told me that he loved me.” - Jennifer Paynter

37. “They danced again, and when the assembly closed, parted, on the lady’s side at least, with a strong inclination for continuing the acquaintance. Whether she thought of him so much while she drank her warm wine and water and prepared herself for bed as to dream of him when there, cannot be ascertained; but I hope it was no more than in a light slumber, or a morning doze at most, for if it be true, as a celebrated writer has maintained, that 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 gentlemen before the gentleman is first known to have dreamed of her.” - Jane Austen

38. “After having so nobly disentangled themselves from the shackles of Parental Authority, by a Clandestine Marriage, they were determined never to forfeit the good opinion they had gained in the World, in so doing, by accepting any proposals of reconciliation that might be offered them by their Fathers – to their farther trial of their noble independence however they never were exposed.” - Jane Austen

39. “...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

40. “Real men wear cravats.” - TheAustenAddict

41. “I want to turn 21 as soon as possible not so that I can drink (how horrific!) but so that I can say, "I am ONE and TWENTY.” - TheAustenAddict

42. “my idea of good company.. is the company of clever, well-informed people. who have a great deal of conversation.” - Jane Austen

43. “A scheme of which every part promises delight, can never be successful; and general disappointment is only warded off by the defence of some little peculiar vexation.” - Jane Austen

44. “Mama, 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

45. “Money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it.” - Jane Austen

46. “I once wrote you a letter and you never replied, which makes me wonder if you ever received it. This time it's a more personal delivery - and I need a reply, even if it's not the one I want.I'm listening to you - I can hear every word, however softly you speak - and I'm half-agony, half-hope. You're saying that men are realists - that, when the woman they love is no longer available, they move on. Well, believe me, I tried - and I thought I had. But seeing you again, after so many years, just proved how little I knew...You told me to trust myself. So here I am back in Bath, putting everything on the line for a second chance with you. Is that what you want, too? Whatever your answer, remember this: I may not deserve you - when I think of how I've behaved, I know I've shown little self-control and even less forgiveness - but I've never stopped loving you.You're talking about heartless men... But I have a heart, and it's the same one you almost broke ten years ago, and it belongs to you, and only you, even more than it did then. And yes, I'm a realist: if you no longer love me, I will accept it. But don't say that only a woman can keep on loving someone who's no longer part of her life! Because I will keep on loving you until there are no stars in the sky.Tell me tonight how you feel. If there's any chance of you loving me back, then I'll wait for you as I should have waited before. If not, say the word and I'll leave you in peace. But I'll never forget you, or what we had, or what might have been. Rick” - Juliet Archer

47. “In suiting the action to the words, however, I perceived that the stars were all wrong.That was my undoing. I had looked up unthinkingly, anticipating the familiar, and, finding it gone, began to cry like a baby. Whereupon Peter stopped the gig and took me in his arms, kissing me so that my face was soon sore both from kissing and crying.” - Jennifer Paynter

48. “I had never in all my life felt so elated. Peter cared for me! It was a miracle I longed to celebrate - to tell all Hertfordshire - and I had to hold my hand to my mouth against an involuntary smile.” - Jennifer Paynter

49. “-Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing, after all.-Take care, Lizzy; that speech savours strongly of disappointment.” - Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice

50. “I found I could listen without envy to Letty's singing, and afterwards when the applause came, I did not mind that Mrs Knowles was heaping praises upon her. Peter's hands were on my chair, and when I leaned back I could feel them against my shoulders.” - Jennifer Paynter

51. “I did not have an opportunity to speak privately with Peter until just as he was leaving, when he handed me one of the Burns song-sheets and (with a most earnest look) told me to read it before I went to bed.The song was 'My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose,' but it was not until was up in my bedchamber that I saw he had written on the inside page: 'My mother would be honoured if you visited her after church tomorrow.” - Jennifer Paynter

52. “I saw that he was looking anxious.'I thought you weren't coming.' As he spoke, he grasped my hand. And if the sight of him had not quite restored the magic, the touch of him most certainly did. 'You're not wishing yourself some place else, Mary?” - Jennifer Paynter

53. “To be so bent on Marriage - to pursue a man merely for the sake of situation - is a sort of thing that shocks me; I cannot understand it. Poverty is a great Evil, but to a woman of Education and feeling it ought not, it cannot be the greatest. I would rather be a teacher at a school (and I can think of nothing worse) than marry a man I did not like.” - Jane Austen

54. “... [In 'Pride and Prejudice'] Mr Collins's repulsiveness in his letter [about Lydia's elopement] does not exist only at the level of the sentence: it permeates all aspects of his rhetoric. Austen's point is that the well-formed sentence belongs to a self-enclosed mind, incapable of sympathetic connections with others and eager to inflict as much pain as is compatible with a thin veneer of politeness. Whereas Blair judged the Addisonian sentence as a completely autonomous unit, Austen judges the sentence as the product of a pre-existing moral agent. What counts is the sentence's ability to reveal that agent, not to enshrine a free-standing morsel of truth.Mr Darcy's letter to Elizabeth, in contrast, features a quite different practice of the sentence, including an odd form of punctation ... The dashes in Mr Darcy's letter transform the typographical sentence by physically making each sentence continuous with the next one. ... The dashes insist that each sentence is not self-sufficient but belongs to a larger macrostructure. Most of Mr Darcy's justification consists not of organised arguments like those of Mr Collins but of narrative. ... The letter's totality exists not in the typographical sentence but in the described event.” - Andrew Elfenbein

55. “Jane believes me, don't you Jane?” - Krista McGee