1. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
2. “Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain.”
3. “You must be the best judge of your own happiness.”
4. “I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”
5. “Angry people are not always wise.”
6. “To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.”
7. “A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”
8. “We are all fools in love.”
9. “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.”
10. “Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.”
“Sense and Sensibility” (1811):
11. “The more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.”
12. “We have neither of us anything to tell; you, because you do not communicate, and I, because I conceal nothing.”
13. “Elinor, for shame! Have you no compassion? Can you deny me? I shall be miserable if you do.”
14. “To your sister, I wish all the imaginable happiness; to Willoughby that he may endeavor to deserve her.”
15. “Marianne was born to an extraordinary fate. She was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her conduct, her most favorite maxims.”
“Mansfield Park” (1814):
16. “There is nothing like employment, active indispensable employment, for relieving sorrow.”
17. “Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.”
18. “Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody not greatly in fault themselves to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest.”
19. “I am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.”
20. “We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.”
“Emma” (1815):
21. “Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.”
22. “I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.”
23. “If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”
24. “One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.”
25. “Never could a woman have a better husband, and, in spite of every distress that poverty could inflict, [she] would do nothing to forfeit the regard and confidence of the best of men.”
“Northanger Abbey” (1817):
26. “I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.”
27. “Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.”
28. “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
29. “But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.”
30. “There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”
“Persuasion” (1817):
31. “All the privilege I claim for my own sex… is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.”
32. “You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever.”
33. “I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures.”
34. “We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us.”
35. “It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before.”
“Emma” (1815) – Continued:
36. “Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.”
37. “I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other.”
38. “A woman is not to marry a man merely because she is asked, or because he is attached to her, and can write a tolerable letter.”
39. “A woman, especially if she has the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.”
40. “Men of sense, whatever you may choose to say, do not want silly wives.”
“Northanger Abbey” (1817) – Continued:
41. “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
42. “I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”
43. “There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.”
44. “I am determined that only the deepest love will induce me into matrimony.”
45. “I must be in love with someone.”
“Persuasion” (1817) – Continued:
46. “All the privilege I claim for my own sex is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.”
47. “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.”
48. “We certainly do not forget you, so soon as you forget us.”
49. “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”
50. “There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison.”
“Sense and Sensibility” (1811) – Continued:
51. “If I could but know his heart, everything would become easy.”
52. “I wish, as well as everybody else, to be perfectly happy; but, like everybody else, it must be in my own way.”
53. “When people are determined on a mode of conduct which they know to be wrong, they feel injured by the expectation of any thing better from them.”
54. “We can never expect to prove any thing but what we feel ourselves.”
55. “My judgment approves as little of the plan as my conscience does.”
“Pride and Prejudice” (1813) – Continued:
56. “You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once.”
57. “Till this moment, I never knew myself.”
58. “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book!”
59. “You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”
60. “Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.”
“Mansfield Park” (1814) – Continued:
61. “I think it ought not to be set down as certain, that a man must be acceptable to every woman he may happen to like himself.”
62. “Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.”
63. “A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.”
64. “A woman can never be too fine while she is all in white.”
65. “The best scheme that can be thought of is, to take orders and wait for dead men’s shoes.”
These quotes further exemplify Austen’s keen observations on society, relationships, and human nature. If you’d like, I can continue with the remaining quotes from her novels. Just let me know!
