Best 979 quotes of Jane Austen on MyQuotes

About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet's lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income.

A family of ten children will be always called a fine family, where there are heads and arms and legs enough for the number.

A fondness for reading, which, properly directed, must be an education in itself.

Ah, mother! How do you do?' said he, giving her a hearty shake of the hand; 'Where did you get that quiz of a hat? It makes you look like an old witch...' On his two younger sisters he then bestowed an equal portion of his fraternal tenderness, for he asked each of them how they did, and observed that they both looked very ugly.

A lady, without a family, was the very best preserver of furniture in the world.

A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.

All the privilege I claim for my own sex ... is that of loving longest, when existence or hope is gone.

All the world is good and agreeable in your eyes.

Almost anything is possible with time

A lucky guess is never merely luck. There is always some talent in it.

A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her.

A man does not recover from such devotion of the heart to such a woman! He ought not; he does not.

A man . . . 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.

A man who has nothing to do with his own time has no conscience in his intrusion on that of others.

A man would always wish to give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from; and he who can do it, where there is no doubt of her regard, must, I think, be the happiest of mortals.

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

An agreeable manner may set off handsome features, but can never alter plain ones.

An annuity is a very serious business.

A natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.

And have you never known the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess? I pity you. I thought you cleverer; for depend upon it, a lucky guess is never merely luck. There is always some talent in it.

And if I had not a letter to write myself, I might sit by you and admire the evenness of your writing, as another young lady once did. But I have an aunt too, who must not be longer neglected.

And sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in.

And now I may dismiss my heroine to the sleepless couch, which is the true heroine's portion - to a pillow strewed with thorns and wet with tears. And lucky may she think herself, if she get another good night's rest in the course of the next three months.

And pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked.

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

And you are never to stir out of doors till you can prove that you have spent ten minutes of every day in a rational manner.

And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody." "And yours," he replied with a smile, "is willfully to misunderstand them.

An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged; no harm can be done.

An interval of meditation, serious and grateful, was the best corrective of everything dangerous in such a high-wrought felicity; and she went to her room, and grew steadfast and fearless in the thankfulness of her enjoyment.

An interval of meditation, serious and grateful, was the best corrective of everything dangerous.

Anne hoped she had outlived the age of blushing; but the age of emotion she certainly had not.

Another stupid party . . . with six people to look on, and talk nonsense to each other.

A novel must show how the world truly is. Somehow, reveals the true source of our actions.

A persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness as a very resolute character.

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

A person who is knowingly bent on bad behavior, gets upset when better behavior is expected of them.

A report of a most alarming nature reached me two days ago.

Arguments are too much like disputes.

As a brother, a landlord, a master, she considered how many people's happiness were in his guardianship! -- How much of pleasure or pain it was in his power to bestow! -- How much of good or evil must be done by him!

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.

A sick child is always the mother's property; her own feelings generally make it so.

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

A single woman with a narrow income must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid, the proper sport of boys and girls, but a single woman of fortune is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as anybody else.

A submissive spirit might be patient, a strong understanding would supply resolution, but here was something more; here was that elasticity of mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of herself, which was from nature alone. It was the choicest gift of Heaven; and Anne viewed her friend as one of those instances in which, by a merciful appointment, it seems designed to counterbalance almost every other want.

At my time of life opinions are tolerably fixed. It is not likely that I should now see or hear anything to change them.

A very narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper. Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small, and generally very inferior, society, may well be illiberal and cross.

A very short trial convinced her that a curricle was the prettiest equipage in the world.

A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.

A woman of seven and twenty, said Marianne, after pausing a moment, can never hope to feel or inspire affection again.

Books--oh! no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with the same feelings." "I am sorry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at least be no want of subject. We may compare our different opinions.