Jane Austen Inspiring Quotations

There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Nobody minds having what is too good for them.

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

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

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

I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.

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.

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.

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

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

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.

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

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?