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

“One man's ways may be as good as another's, but we all like our own best.”

— 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

“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

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

— 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

“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

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

— Jane Austen

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

— 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

“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

“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

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

— Jane Austen

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

— Jane Austen

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

— Jane Austen

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

— Jane Austen

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

— Jane Austen

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

— Jane Austen

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

— Jane Austen