Jane Austen Ring Quotations

It would be most right, and most wise, and, therefore must involve least suffering.

Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a something of shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the latter.

Nobody minds having what is too good for them.

A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.

It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before.

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.

I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.

One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering.

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.

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.

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.

There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.

Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.

One man's style must not be the rule of another's.

A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.

A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.

I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.

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.

There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.

What is right to be done cannot be done too soon.

Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied.

Why not seize the pleasure at once? -- How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!

Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.

We do not suffer by accident.

There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.

They are much to be pitied who have not been given a taste for nature early in life.

Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.

A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.

You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.

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 anything.

Where youth and diffidence are united, it requires uncommon steadiness of reason to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl in the world.

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.

I am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.

Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.

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.

It is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are they the result of previous study?

One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.

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.

It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage.

Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor. Which is one very strong argument in favor of matrimony.

Business, you know, may bring you money, but friendship hardly ever does.

Where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?

Whom are you going to dance with?' asked Mr. Knightley. She hesitated a moment and then replied, 'With you, if you will ask me.' Will you?' said he, offering his hand. Indeed I will. You have shown that you can dance, and you know we are not really so much brother and sister as to make it at all improper.' Brother and sister! no, indeed.

The last few hours were certainly very painful," replied Anne: "but when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure. One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering-

speaks very truthfully. ... I loved the fact that it felt so honest. I respond to scripts regardless of where or when they're set; for me, it's about whether the characters ring true.

Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does.