Quotes About Society

Brandon is just the kind of man whom every body speaks well of, and nobody cares about; whom all are delighted to see, and nobody remembers to talk to.

It's a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days.

I frequently observe that one pretty face would be followed by five and thirty frights.

Do you dance, Mr. Darcy? Darcy: Not if I can help it! Sir William: What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! There is nothing like dancing, after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies. Mr. Darcy: Certainly, sir; and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst the less polished societies of the world; every savage can dance.

If this man had not twelve thousand a year, he would be a very stupid fellow.

If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard?

My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company. You are mistaken, said he gently, that is not good company; that is the best. Good company requires only birth, education, and manners (...)

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

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

Cold-hearted Elinor! Oh! Worse than cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise.

I do regard her as one who is too modest for the world in general to be aware of half her accomplishments, and too highly accomplished for modesty to be natural of any other woman.

But to appear happy when I am so miserable — Oh! who can require it?

He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and every body hoped that he would never come there again.

Catherine hoped at least to pass uncensured through the crowd. As for admiration, it was always very welcome when it came, but she did not depend on it.

We do not look in great cities for our best morality.

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.

Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor...which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony... Quote from a Jane Austen Letter 13 March, 1817

Give a girl an education, and introduce her properly into the world

She was nothing more than a mere good-tempered, civil and obliging Young Woman; as such we could scarcely dislike her -- she was only an Object of Contempt

I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any.

Manners is what holds a society together. At bottom, propriety is concern for other people. When that goes out the window, the gates of hell are shortly opened and ignorance is King.

She] is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own, and with many men, I dare say, it succeeds. But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art.

We neither of us perform to strangers.