Quotes from Jane Austen

She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me; I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.

She tried to be calm, and leave things to take their course; and tried to dwell much on this argument of rational dependence- 'Surely, if there be constant attachment on each side, our hearts must understand each other ere long. We are not boy and girl, to be captiously irritable, misled by every moment's inadvertence, and wantonly playing with our own happiness.'

At first sight, his address is certainly not striking; and his person can hardly be called handsome, till the expression of his eyes, which are uncommonly good, and the general sweetness of his countenance, is perceived. At present, I know him so well, that I think him really handsome; or at least, almost so. What say you, Marianne?

There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others.

its healing powers, on a disappointed heart

orgullo está relacionado con la opinión que tenemos de nosotros mismos; la vanidad, con lo que quisiéramos que los demás pensaran de nosotros.

It was foolish, it was wrong, to take so active a part in bringing any two people together.

I beg your pardon; one knows exactly what to think.

Without any display of doing more than the rest, or any fear of doing too much, he was always true to her interests and considerate of her feelings, trying to make her good qualities understood, and to conquer the diffidence which prevented them from being more apparent; giving her advice, consolation, and encouragement.

No, I must keep to my own style and 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.

No lace. No lace, Mrs. Bennett, I beg you!

The world had made him extravagant and vain - Extravagance and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish. Vanity, while seeking its own guilty triumph at the expense of another, had involved him in a real attachment, which extravagance, or at least its offspring, necessity, had required to be sacrificed. Each faulty propensity in leading him to evil, had led him likewise to punishment.

An artist cannot do anything slovenly.

Me pregunto quién sería el primero en descubrir la eficacia de la poesía para acabar con el amor. ?Yo siempre he considerado que la poesía es el alimento del amor ?dijo Darcy. ?De un gran amor, sólido y fuerte, puede. Todo nutre a lo que ya es fuerte de por sí. Pero si es solo una inclinación ligera, sin ninguna base, un buen soneto la acabaría matando de hambre.

one day in the country is exactly like another.

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?

The whole story would have been speedily formed under her active imagination; and every thing established in the most melancholy order of disastrous love

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.

Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions.  A large bulky figure has as good a right to be in deep affliction, as the more graceful set of limbs in the world.  But, fair or not fair, there are unbecoming conjunctions, which reason will patronize in vain, — which taste cannot tolerate, — which ridicule will seize.

For though a very few hours spent in the hard labour of incessant talking will dispatch more subjects than can really be in common between any two rational creatures, yet with lovers it is different. Between them no subject is finished, no communication is ever made, till it has been made at least twenty times over.

I think we are a great deal better employed, sitting comfortably here among ourselves, and doing nothing.

How hard it is in some cases to be believed!' 'And how impossible in others!

Do you not want to know who has taken it? cried his wife impatiently.

I'm ill qualified to recommend myself to strangers. Mr. Darcy