“A single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as any body else.”

“It is only poverty that makes celibacy contemptible. A single woman of good fortune is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as any body else.”

“The pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.-Sense and Sensibility”

“It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for any body who asks her.”

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

“Oh! to be sure," cried Emma, "it is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for any body who asks her.”

“Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!”