Quotes by Jane Austen

About Jane Austen:

Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature. Her realism, biting irony and social commentary as well as her acclaimed plots have gained her historical importance among scholars and critics.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

This was a lucky recollection -- it saved her from something like regret.

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

How quick come the reasons for approving what we like.

Jane Austen

Her in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn--that seas...

Jane Austen

Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot's character; vanity of person and of situation. He had been remarkably handsome in his youth; and, at fifty-four, was still a very fine man. Few women could think more of their personal appear...

Jane Austen

I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men." "Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you p...

Jane Austen

...I will not allow books to prove any thing." "But how shall we prove any thing?" "We never shall.

Jane Austen

Her [Mrs Croft's] manners were open, easy, and decided, like one who had no distrust of herself, and no doubts of what to do; without any approach to coarseness, however, or any want of good humour. Anne gave her credit, indeed, for feelings of great...

Jane Austen

They had no conversation together, no intercourse but what the commonest civility required. Once so much to each other! Now nothing! There had been a time, when of all the large party now filling the drawing-room at Uppercross, they would have found ...

Jane Austen

But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days.

Jane Austen

All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, you need not covet it) is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.

Jane Austen

My idea of good company, Mr. Eliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.

Jane Austen

What! Would I be turned back from doing a thing that I had determined to do, and that I knew to be right, by the airs and interference of such a person, or any person I may say? No, I have no idea of being so easily persuaded. When I have made up my ...

Jane Austen

I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.

Jane Austen

Woe betide him, and her too, when it comes to things of consequence, when they are placed in circumstances requiring fortitude and strength of mind, if she have not resolution enough to resist idle interference ... It is the worst evil of too yieldin...

Jane Austen

A lady, without a family, was the very best preserver of furniture in the world.

Jane Austen

There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison

Jane Austen

...and yet, though desirous to be gone, she could not quit the mansion-house, or look an adieu to the cottage, with its black, dripping and comfortless veranda, or even notice through the misty glasses the last humble tenements of the village, withou...

Jane Austen

But the same spirits of analogy will authorise me to assert that ours are the most tender. Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer-lived; which exactly explains my view of the nature of their attachment. Nay, it would be too hard upon you...

Jane Austen

Alas! with all her reasoning, she found, that to retentive feelings eight years may be little more than nothing.

Jane Austen

They all went indoors with their new friends, and found rooms so small as none but those who invite from the heart could think capable of accommodating so many.

Jane Austen

Author Bio

  • NameJane Austen
  • DescriptionEnglish novelist
  • BornDecember 16, 1775
  • DiedJuly 18, 1817
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionNovelist; Writer