jane-austen

"I give you joy of having left Winchester. Now you may own how miserable you were there; now it will gradually all come out, your crimes and your miseries — how often you went up by the Mail to London and threw away fifty guineas at a tavern, and how often you were on the point of hanging yourself, restrained only, as some ill-natured aspersion upon poor old Winton has it, by the want of a tree within some miles of the city."

"What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited sketches, full of variety and glow? How could I possibly join them on to the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labour?"

"I would recommend to her and Mr. D. the simple regimen of separate rooms."

"Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor, which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony."

"Many thanks for your kind care for my health; I certainly have not been well for many weeks, and about a week ago I was very poorly. I have had a good deal of fever at times, and indifferent nights; but I am considerably better now and am recovering my looks a little, which have been bad enough — black and white, and every wrong colour. I must not depend upon being ever very blooming again. Sickness is a dangerous indulgence at my time of life."

"I know no better way, my dearest Edward, of thanking you for your affectionate concern for me during my illness than by telling you myself, as soon as possible, that I continue to get better. I will not boast of my handwriting; neither that nor my face have yet recovered their proper beauty, but in other respects I am gaining strength very fast. I am now out of bed from 9 in the morning to 10 at night: upon the sofa, 'tis true, but I eat my meals with Aunt Cass in a rational way, and can employ myself, and walk from one room to another. Mr. Lyford says he will cure me, and if he fails, I shall draw up a memorial and lay it before the Dean and Chapter, and have no doubt of redress from that pious, learned, and disinterested body."

"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."

"Sophia shrieked and fainted on the ground—I screamed and instantly ran mad! We remained thus mutually deprived of our senses some minutes, and on regaining them were deprived of them again. For an hour and a quarter did we continue in this unfortunate situation."

"It was in this reign that Joan of Arc reigned and made such a row among the English."

"There were several Battles between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians, in which the former (as they ought) usually won."

"She [Mary I] married Philip King of Spain, who in her sister's reign, was famous for building Armadas."

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

"People always live forever when there is an annuity to be paid them."

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

"To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love."

"Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance."

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

"For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?"

"The pride of any mother is to give birth to a responsible and successful child."

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

"A lady, without a family, was the very best preserver of furniture in the world."

"It was, perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides."

"I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve."

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

"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 great cities for our best morality."

"She was of course only too good for him; but as nobody minds having what is too good for them, he was very steadily earnest in the pursuit of the blessing..."

"I speak what appears to me the general opinion; and where an opinion is general, it is usually correct."

"Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery."

"I shall soon be rested," said Fanny; "to sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure, is the most perfect refreshment."

"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 a lovely night, and they are much to be pitied who have not been taught to feel, in some degree, as you do; who have not, at least, been given a taste for Nature in early life. They lose a great deal."

"But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them."

"Of various admirals I could tell you a great deal: of them and their flags, and the gradation of their pay, and their bickerings and jealousies. But, in general, I can assure you that they are all passed over, and all very ill used. Certainly, my home at my uncle’s brought me acquainted with a circle of admirals. Of Rears and Vices I saw enough. Now do not be suspecting me of a pun, I entreat."

"One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other."

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

"...why did we wait for any thing? — why not seize the pleasure at once? — How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!"

"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."

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

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

"Ah! there is nothing like staying at home for real comfort."

"One has not great hopes from Birmingham. I always say there is something direful in the sound..."

"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."

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

"Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open?"

"...from politics, it was an easy step to silence."

"It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire."

"Here I am once more in this scene of dissipation and vice, and I begin already to find my morals corrupted."

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel must be intolerably stupid"

"What could I do! Facts are such horrid things!"