Top 793 Quotes & Sayings by Jane Austen

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a British novelist Jane Austen.

Last updated on September 16, 2024.

Jane Austen was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security. Her works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism. Her use of biting irony, along with her realism and social commentary, have earned her acclaim among critics and scholars.

British - Novelist | December 16, 1775 - July 18, 1817

Source: Wikipedia

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

Jane Austen

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

Jane Austen

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

Jane Austen

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

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

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

Jane Austen

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.

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

I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.

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

A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.

Jane Austen

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.

Jane Austen

The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.

Jane Austen

A man would always wish to give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from; and he who can do it, where there is no doubt of her regard, must, I think, be the happiest of mortals.

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

In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels.

Jane Austen

Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then.

Jane Austen

Those who do not complain are never pitied.

Jane Austen

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.

Jane Austen

Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.

Jane Austen

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

Jane Austen

Where youth and diffidence are united, it requires uncommon steadiness of reason to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl in the world.

Jane Austen

One man's style must not be the rule of another's.

Jane Austen

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

Jane Austen

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

Jane Austen

There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.

Jane Austen

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

Jane Austen

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

Jane Austen

Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.

Jane Austen

Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain.

Jane Austen

A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.

Jane Austen

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

Jane Austen

From politics, it was an easy step to silence.

Jane Austen

Nobody minds having what is too good for them.

Jane Austen

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

Jane Austen

Dress is at all times a frivolous distinction, and excessive solicitude about it often destroys its own aim.

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

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

Jane Austen

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

Jane Austen

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.

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

A single woman with a very narrow income must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid - the proper sport of boys and girls; but a single woman of good fortune is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as anybody else.

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

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

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

Jane Austen

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

Jane Austen

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

Jane Austen

An artist cannot do anything slovenly.

Jane Austen

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.

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

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

Jane Austen

Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.

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

No man is offended by another man's admiration of the woman he loves; it is the woman only who can make it a torment.

Jane Austen

There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.

Jane Austen

If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.

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

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.

Jane Austen

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.

Jane Austen