A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.
— Jane Austen
I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.
Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.
I am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.
Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.
There are certainly not so many men of large fortune in the world, as there are pretty women to deserve them.
A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
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.
One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.
They are much to be pitied who have not been given a taste for nature early in life.
Business, you know, may bring you money, but friendship hardly ever does.
Those who do not complain are never pitied.
If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.
Where an opinion is general, it is usually correct.
To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain for the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.
One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.
Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.
Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.
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.
We do not look in our great cities for our best morality.
Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.
For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?
To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.
In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels.
Nobody minds having what is too good for them.
My sore throats are always worse than anyone's.
There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.
Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor. Which is one very strong argument in favor of matrimony.
One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering.
A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.
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 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.
It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage.
To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.
From politics, it was an easy step to silence.
I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.
If things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next.
