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

If I am wrong, I am doing what I believe to the right.

Jane Austen

She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance - a misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well−informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible pe...

Jane Austen

It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of a man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire... Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the mor...

Jane Austen

…she had nothing to do but to forgive herself and be happier than ever…

Jane Austen

There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.

Jane Austen

You feel, I suppose, that, in losing Isabella, you lose half yourself: you feel a void in your heart which nothing else can occupy.  Society is becoming irksome; and as for the amusements in which you were wont to share at Bath, the very idea of whi...

Jane Austen

The progress of the friendship between Catherine and Isabella was quick as its beginning had been warm...and if a rainy morning deprived them of other enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut themselves up...

Jane Austen

The past, present, and future, were all equally in gloom.

Jane Austen

But history, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. Can you?" "Yes, I am fond of history." "I wish I were too. I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with ...

Jane Austen

[I]t is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible.

Jane Austen

She hated herself more than she could express.

Jane Austen

I am fond of history and am very well contented to take the false with the true. In the principal facts they have sources of intelligence in former histories and records, which may be as much depended on, I conclude, as anything that does not actuall...

Jane Austen

But the inexplicability of the General's conduct dwelt much on her thoughts. That he was very particular in his eating, she had, by her own unassisted observation, already discovered; but why should he say one thing so positively, and mean another al...

Jane Austen

[Mrs. Allen was] never satisfied with the day unless she spent the chief of it by the side of Mrs. Thorpe, in what they called conversation, but in which there was scarcely ever any exchange of opinion, and not often any resemblance of subject, for M...

Jane Austen

I leave it to be settled, by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.

Jane Austen

What a revolution in her ideas!

Jane Austen

Miss Morland, no one can think more highly of the understanding of women than I do. In my opinion, nature has given them so much that they never find it necessary to use more than half.

Jane Austen

Good heaven! My dear Isabella, what do you mean? Can you -- can you really be in love with James?

Jane Austen

His departure gave Catherine the first experimental conviction that a loss may be sometimes a gain.

Jane Austen

To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen, is to do pretty well; and professing myself moreover convinced, that the General's unjust interference, so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was perhaps ra...

Jane Austen

I assure you. I have no notion of treating men with such respect. That is the way to spoil them.

Jane Austen

Author Bio

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