Jane Austen

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

— 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

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

— 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

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

— 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

“General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be.”

— 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

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

— 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

“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

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

— Jane Austen

“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.”

— Jane Austen

“It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage.”

— Jane Austen

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

— Jane Austen

“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.”

— Jane Austen

“They are much to be pitied who have not been given a taste for nature early in life.”

— Jane Austen

“Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.”

— Jane Austen