Jane Austen

“There are certainly not so many men of large fortune in the world, as there are pretty women to deserve them.”

— Jane Austen

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

— Jane Austen

“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.”

— Jane Austen

“Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor. Which is one very strong argument in favor of matrimony.”

— Jane Austen

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

— Jane Austen

“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.”

— Jane Austen

“Respect for right conduct is felt by every body.”

— Jane Austen

“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.”

— Jane Austen

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

— Jane Austen

“To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.”

— Jane Austen

“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.”

— Jane Austen

“We do not look in our great cities for our best morality.”

— Jane Austen

“There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.”

— Jane Austen

“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.”

— Jane Austen

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

— Jane Austen

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

— Jane Austen

“Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.”

— Jane Austen

“From politics, it was an easy step to silence.”

— Jane Austen

“A lady's imagination is very rapid it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”

— Jane Austen

“Good-humoured, unaffected girls, will not do for a man who has been used to sensible women. They are two distinct orders of being.”

— Jane Austen