Good-humoured, unaffected girls, will not do for a man who has been used to sensible women. They are two distinct orders of being.
Category: Jane Austen
Jane Austen (/ˈdʒeɪn ˈɔːstən/; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature.
But Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an Englishman’s constitution.
A classical education, or at any rate a very extensive acquaintance with English literature, ancient and modern, appears to me quite indispensable for the person who would do any justice to your clergyman; and I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress.
Where an opinion is general, it is usually correct.
Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody.
It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.
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 artist cannot do anything slovenly.
A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.
Here and there, human nature may be great in times of trial, but generally speaking it is its weakness and not its strength that appears in a sick chamber.
“His pride,” said Miss Lucas, “does not offend me so much as pride often does, because there is an excuse for it. One cannot wonder that so very fine a young man, with family, fortune, everything in his favour, should think highly of himself. If I may so express it, he has a right to be proud.”
“That is very true,” replied Elizabeth, “and I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.”
I am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.
I am pleased that you have learned to love a hyacinth. The mere habit of learning to love is the thing; and a teachableness of disposition in a young lady is a great blessing.
Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor, which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony.
For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?
A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.
What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.
One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.
No man is offended by another man’s admiration of the woman he loves, it is the woman only who can make it a torment.
I begin already to weigh my words and sentences more than I did, and am looking about for a sentiment, an illustration or a metaphor in every corner of the room. Could my Ideas flow as fast as the rain in the Store closet it would be charming.
You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove any thing.
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.
I consider a country-dance as an emblem of marriage. Fidelity and complaisance are the principle duties of both; and those men who do not choose to dance or to marry them selves, have no business with the partners or wives of the neighbors.