Jane Austen Quotes

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.

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.

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.

Self-knowledge is the first step to maturity.

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

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

The power of doing anything with quickness is always prized much by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance.

Oh! do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.

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

What is right to be done cannot be done too soon.

I was quiet but I was not blind.

We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.

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

There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.

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

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

Every savage can dance.