Quotes from Jane Austen

Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does

The very first moment I beheld him, my heart was irrevocably gone.

Single women have a dreadful propensity to being poor

She was not often invited to join in the conversation of the others, nor did she desire it. Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.

They parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a mutual desire of never meeting again.

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.

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

...And talking of the dear family party which would then be restored, of their mutual pursuits and cheerful society, as the only happiness worth a wish.

One cannot fix one's eyes on the commonest natural production without finding food for a rambling fancy.

Too many cooks spoil the broth

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

Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first?

Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.

The post office has a great charm at one point of our lives. When you have lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going through the rain for.

It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before.

I cannot think well of a man who sports with any woman's feelings; and there may often be a great deal more suffered than a stander-by can judge of.

In vain have I 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.

It is only poverty that makes celibacy contemptible. A single woman of good fortune is always respectable.