Quotes from Jane Austen

Los que no cambian nunca de opinión deben cerciorarse bien antes de juzgar.

Elinor, cried Marianne, is this fair? is this just? are my ideas so scanty? But I see what you mean. I have been too much at my ease, too happy, too frank. I have erred against every common-place notion of decorum; I have been open and sincere where I ought to have been reserved, spiritless, dull, and deceitful:- had I talked only of the weather and the roads, and had I spoken only once in ten minutes, this reproach would have been spared.

I cannot make speeches, Emma:"—he soon resumed, and in a tone of such sincere, decided, intelligible tenderness as was tolerably convincing. "If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it.

John Thorpe [...] was a stout young man of middling height, who, with a plain face and ungraceful form, seemed fearful of being too handsome unless he wore the dress of a groom, and too much like a gentleman unless he were easy where he ought to be civil, and impudent where he might be allowed to be easy.

It was impossible to quarrel with words, whose tremulous inequality showed indisposition so plainly.

But you must give my compliments to him. Yes — I think it must be compliments. Is not there a something wanted, Miss Price, in our language — a something between compliments and — and love — to suit the sort of friendly acquaintance we have had together? — So many months acquaintance! — But compliments may be sufficient here.

I am not afraid of you, said he, smilingly.

I do not believe, said Mrs. Dashwood, with a good humoured smile, that Mr. Willoughby will be incommoded by the attempts of either of MY daughters towards what you call CATCHING him. It is not an employment to which they have been brought up. Men are very safe with us, let them be ever so rich.

La personne, homme ou femme, qui n'éprouve pas de plaisir à la lecture d'un bon roman ne peut qu'être d'une bêtise intolérable.

That is an expression, Sir John, said Marianne, warmly, which I particularly dislike. I abhor every common–place phrase by which wit is intended; and setting one's cap at a man, or making a conquest, are the most odious of all. Their tendency is gross and illiberal; and if their construction could ever be deemed clever, time has long ago destroyed all its ingenuity.

En mi opinión, no hay placer mayor que la lectura.

for I look upon the Frasers to be about as unhappy as most other married people.

for I have often observed that resignation is never so perfect as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its value is our estimation.

Her mother was a woman of useful plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is more remarkable, with a good constitution. She had three sons before Catherine was born; and instead of dying in bringing the latter into the world, as anybody might expect, she still lived on--

Family connexions were always worth preserving, good company always worth seeking

Gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough, to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection.

Charles Adams was an amiable, accomplished & bewitching young Man; of so dazzling a Beauty that none but Eagles could look him in the Face.

I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.

Every thing was a friend, or bore her thoughts to a friend; and though there had been sometimes much of suffering to her- though her motives had been often misunderstood, her feelings disregarded, and her comprehension under-valued; though she had known the pains of tyranny, of ridicule, and neglect, yet almost every recurrence of either had led to something consolatory... and the whole was now so blended together, so harmonised by distance, that every former affliction had its charm.

She will be more hurt by it, for Robert always was her favourite. —She will be more hurt by it, and on the same principle will forgive him much sooner.

Their union, she believed, could not divide her more from other men, than their final separation.

Whenever you are transplanted, like me, you will understand how very delightful it is to meet with anything at all like what one has left behind.

If you will thank me," he replied, "let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you.

and never had she so honestly felt that she could have loved him, as now, when all love must be vain.