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 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.
I would have everybody marry if they can do it properly: I do not like to have people throw themselves away; but everybody should marry as soon as they can do it to advantage.
Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.
I could not sit down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life.
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.
Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.
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.
Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.
A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.
To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.
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.
Dress is at all times a frivolous distinction, and excessive solicitude about it often destroys its own aim.
Oh! do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.
We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.
There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.
Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.
It is very difficult for the prosperous to be humble.
Nothing ever fatigues me but doing what I do not like.
The power of doing anything with quickness is always prized much by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance.
There is not one in a hundred of either sex who is not taken in when they marry.
What is right to be done cannot be done too soon.
Good-humoured, unaffected girls, will not do for a man who has been used to sensible women. They are two distinct orders of being.
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.
Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain.
One man's style must not be the rule of another's.
Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.
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.
There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.
The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.
It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before.
Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then.
One man's ways may be as good as another's, but we all like our own best.
Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.
Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of the mouths of other people.
Every savage can dance.
Is not general incivility the very essence of love?
How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!
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.
Respect for right conduct is felt by every body.
An artist cannot do anything slovenly.
General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be.
A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.
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.
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?
The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.
What wild imaginations one forms where dear self is concerned! How sure to be mistaken!
I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.
