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A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.
Jane Austen
- Life
- 1775-1817
- Occupations
- writer, short story writer, novelist
- Notable works
- Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Persuasion
Facts: Wikidata (CC0), as of 2026-07-09
Austen quotes come with a trap: her narrators and characters are usually being ironic, so lifting a line flattens the joke -- 'It is a truth universally acknowledged...' is mock-solemn, not solemn. Several popular 'Austen quotes' actually come from screen adaptations, not the novels. She published anonymously in her lifetime; her name first appeared on her books only after her death in 1817.
A man would always wish to give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from; and he who can do it, where there is no doubt of her regard, must, I think, be the happiest of mortals.
Jane Austen
A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.
Jane Austen
A Mr. (save, perhaps, some half dozen in the nation,) always needs a note of explanation.
Jane Austen
An artist cannot do anything slovenly.
Jane Austen
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.
Jane Austen
Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without affection.
Jane Austen
A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable, old maid! the proper sport of boys and girls; but a single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as anybody else.
Jane Austen
A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.
Jane Austen
Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does.
Jane Austen
But Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an Englishman’s constitution.
Jane Austen
For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?
Jane Austen
General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be.
Jane Austen
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.
Jane Austen
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.
Jane Austen
I am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.
Jane Austen
I am come, young ladies, in a very moralizing strain, to observe that our pleasures of this world are always to be for, and that we often purchase them at a great disadvantage, giving readi-monied actual happiness for a draft on the future, that may not be honoured.
Jane Austen
I am looking over Self Control again, & my opinion is confirmed of its being an excellently-meant, elegantly-written Work, without anything of Nature or Probability in it.
Jane Austen
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.
Jane Austen
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.
Jane Austen
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.
Jane Austen
I do not write for such dull elves As have not a great deal of ingenuity themselves.
Jane Austen
If the warmth of her Language could affect the Body it might be worth reading in this weather.
Jane Austen
If things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next.
Jane Austen
I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print.
Jane Austen
It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her.
Jane Austen
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
Jane Austen
It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy; it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.
Jane Austen
It is very unfair to judge any body’s conduct, without an intimate knowledge of their situation. Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what difficulties of any individual of that family may be.
Jane Austen
It was the misfortune of poetry, to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly, were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly.
Jane Austen
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.
Jane Austen
Lady Sondes’ match surprises, but does not offend me; had her first marriage been of affection, or had their been a grown-up daughter, I should not have forgiven her; but I consider everybody as having a right to marry once in their lives for love, if they can.
Jane Austen
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.
Jane Austen
My idea of good company ... is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.
Jane Austen
Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied.
Jane Austen
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.
Jane Austen
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.
Jane Austen
Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.
Jane Austen
Nothing is to be compared to the misery of being bound without Love, bound to one, & preferring another. That is a Punishment which you do not deserve.
Jane Austen
One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.
Jane Austen
One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering.
Jane Austen
One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.
Jane Austen
One man's style must not be the rule of another's.
Jane Austen
Only one comes back with me tomorrow, probably Miss Eliza, & I rather dread it. We shall not have two Ideas in common. She is young, pretty, chattering, & thinking chiefly (I presume) of Dress, Company, & Admiration.
Jane Austen
Respect for right conduct is felt by every body.
Jane Austen
Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken.
Jane Austen
Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.
Jane Austen
She believed that she must now submit to feel that another lesson, in the art of knowing our own nothingness beyond our own circle, was becoming necessary for her.
Jane Austen
She found his manners very pleasing indeed.-The little flaw of having a Mistress now living with him at Ashdown Park, seems to be the only unpleasing circumstance about him.
Jane Austen
Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor, which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony.
Jane Austen
Single Women have a dreadful propensity for being poor'which is one very strong argument in favor of Matrimony. Letter, March 13, 1817, to her niece, Fanny Knight. Jane Austen's Letters, Oxford University Press (1952).
Jane Austen
Surprizes are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.
Jane Austen
The ladies here probably exchanged looks which meant, “Men never know when things are dirty or not;” and the gentlemen perhaps thought each to himself, “Women will have their little nonsense and needless cares.”
Jane Austen
The post-office had a great charm at one period of our lives. When you have lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going through the rain for.
Jane Austen
There are certainly not so many men of large fortune in the world, as there are pretty women to deserve them.
Jane Austen
There are people, the more you do for them, the less they do for themselves.
Jane Austen
There are secrets in all families.
Jane Austen
There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.
Jane Austen
There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.
Jane Austen
There is scarcely a young lady in the united kingdoms, who would not rather put up with the misfortune of being sought by a clever, agreeable man, than have him driven away by the vulgarity of her nearest relations.
Jane Austen
There is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions.
Jane Austen
The trees, though not fully clothed, were in that delightful state, when further beauty is known to be at hand, and when, while much is actually given to the sight, more yet remains for the imagination.
Jane Austen
The truth is, that in London it is always a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be.
Jane Austen
Undoubtedly ... there is a meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. What bears affinity to cunning is despicable.
Jane Austen
Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.
Jane Austen
Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.
Jane Austen
We are to have a tiny party here to-night. I hate tiny parties, they force one into constant exertion.
Jane Austen
We are to have a tiny party here tonight; I hate tiny parties'they force one into constant exertion. Letter, May 21, 1801, to her sister, Cassandra.
Jane Austen
What did she say?-Just what she ought, of course. A lady always does.-She said enough to show there need not be despair-and to invite him to say more himself.
Jane Austen
What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.
Jane Austen
What fine weather this is! Not very becoming perhaps early in the morning, but very pleasant out of doors at noon, and very wholesome-at least everybody fancies so, and imagination is everything. To Edward, however, I really think dry weather of importance. I have not taken to fires yet.
Jane Austen
What fine weather this is! Not very becoming perhaps early in the morning, but very pleasant out of doors at noon, and very wholesome'at least everybody fancies so, and imagination is everything. Letter, November 17, 1798, to her sister, Cassandra. Jane Austen's Letters, Oxford University Press (1952).
Jane Austen
What is right to be done cannot be done too soon.
Jane Austen
What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited Sketches, full of Variety and Glow?
Jane Austen
Where an opinion is general, it is usually correct.
Jane Austen
Where shall we see a better daughter, or a kinder sister, or a truer friend?
Jane Austen
With men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please, every feature works.
Jane Austen
Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small for tune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want.
Jane Austen
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.
Jane Austen
Young ladies are delicate plants. They should take care of their health and their complexion.
Jane Austen