Wednesday, September 7, 2011

JAne Austen wise author ...


Novels
Short fiction
Unfinished fiction
Other works
  • Sir Charles Grandison (1793, 1800)[122]
  • Plan of a Novel (1815)
  • Poems
  • Prayers
  • Letters
Juvenilia – Volume the First[123]
  • Frederic & Elfrida
  • Jack & Alice
  • Edgar & Emma
  • Henry and Eliza
  • The Adventures of Mr. Harley
  • Sir William Mountague
  • Memoirs of Mr. Clifford
  • The Beautifull Cassandra
  • Amelia Webster
  • The Visit
  • The Mystery
  • The Three Sisters
  • A beautiful description
  • The generous Curate
  • Ode to Pity
Juvenilia – Volume the Second
Juvenilia – Volume the Third
  • Evelyn
  • Catharine, or the Bower


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

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."

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

I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal."

"I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library."

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

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

"There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense."

In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you."

Ah! There is nothing like staying at home, for real comfort."

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...I have loved none but you."


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

Perhaps it is our imperfections that make us so perfect for one another!"

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."

but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short."

"The Very first moment I beheld him, my heart was irrevocably gone."

"When I fall in love, it will be forever."

"I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other."
"It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we do."

I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control. "
Nothing ever fatigues me, but doing what I do not like."
"From the very beginning— from the first moment, I may almost say— of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation
I have not the pleasure of understanding you."
"Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings."
"What strange creatures brothers are!"

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.'
'You are mistaken,' said he gently, 'that is not good company, that is the best."

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

You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure."

You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure."

"Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way."

"She was sensible and clever, but eager in everything; her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation."

She was sensible and clever, but eager in everything; her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation."

"I cannot make speeches, Emma...If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it."

"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."

"Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how."

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

"I am excessively diverted. "

"Better be without sense than misapply it as you do. "

"He is a gentleman, and I am a gentleman's daughter. So far we are equal."

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

"There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me."

"I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me."

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

"Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first?"

"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!"

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

"It's been many years since I had such an exemplary vegetable."

"Occupied in observing Mr. Bingley’s attentions to her sister, Elizabeth was far from suspecting that she was herself becoming an object of some interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty: he had looked at her without admiration at the ball; and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticise. But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. Of this she was perfectly unaware: to her he was only the man who made himself agreeable nowhere, and who had not thought her handsome enough to dance with."

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

"I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family circle; to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased."

"How quick come the reasons for approving what we like."

"You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.” – Mr. Darcy"

"They were within twenty yards of each other, and so abrupt was his appearance, that it was impossible to avoid his sight. Their eyes instantly met, and the cheeks of each were overspread with the deepest blush. He absolutely started, and for a moment seemed immoveable from surprise; but shortly recovering himself, advanced towards the party, and spoke to Elizabeth, if not in terms of perfect composure, at least of perfect civility."

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

"There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart."

"From all that I can collect by your manner of talking, you must be two of the silliest girls in the country. I have suspected it some time, but I am now convinced."

"Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can."

"I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible."

"Till this moment I never knew myself."

"Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise."

"She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me, and I am in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men."

"A man does not recover from such devotion of the heart to such a woman! He ought not; he does not."

"Do not give way to useless alarm; though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain."

"Men of sense, whatever you may choose to say, do not want silly wives."

"Men were put into the world to teach women the law of compromise. "

"Dear Diary, Today I tried not to think about Mr. Knightly. I tried not to think about him when I discussed the menu with Cook... I tried not to think about him in the garden where I thrice plucked the petals off a daisy to acertain his feelings for Harriet. I don't think we should keep daisies in the garden, they really are a drab little flower. And I tried not to think about him when I went to bed, but something had to be done."

"Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her."

"There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome."
"And your defect is a propensity to hate every body."
"And yours," he replied with a smile, "is wilfully to misunderstand them."

"Know your own happiness. Want for nothing but patience -- or give it a more fascinating name: Call it hope."

"Elinor agreed with it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition."

"An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do."

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

"What dreadful Hot weather we have!—It keeps one in a continual state of Inelegance."

"Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection."

"How despicably I have acted!" she cried; "I, who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameable mistrust! How humiliating is this discovery! Yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our aquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment I never knew myself."

"No young lady can be justified in falling in love before the gentleman's love is declared, it must be very improper that a young lady should dream of a gentleman before the gentleman is first known to have dreamt of her."

"Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied."

"Could there be finer symptoms? Is not general incivility the very essence of love?"

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

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

"Where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?"

"That will do extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let the other young ladies have time to exhibit."

"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."

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

"It is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are they the result of previous study?"

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

"But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever."

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

"You have bewitched me body and soul, and I love, I love, I love you. And wish from this day forth never to be parted from you."

"And pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked."

"You deserve a longer letter than this; but it is my unhappy fate seldom to treat people so well as they deserve."

"She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she was not wise yet."

"It is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible."

"I might as well enquire,” replied she, “why with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character?"

"I cannot think well of a man who sports with any woman's feelings; and there may often be a great deal more suffered than a stander-by can judge of."

"Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly."

"You either choose this method of passing the evening because you are in each other's confidence, and have secret affairs to discuss, or because you. are conscious that your figures appear to the greatest advantage in walking;— if the first, I should be completely in your way, and if the second, I can admire you much better as I sit by the fire."

"I am not at all in a humor for writing; I must write on till I am."

"If I could not be persuaded into doing what I thought wrong, I will never be tricked into it."

"Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life."

"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 now convinced that I have never been much in love; for had I really experienced that pure and elevating passion, I should at present detest his very name, and wish him all manner of evil. But my feelings are not only cordial towards him; they are even impartial towards her. I cannot find out that I hate her at all, or that I am in the least unwilling to think her a very good sort of girl. There can be no love in all this."

"Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You
take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion for my poor nerves."

"You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They
are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration
these last twenty years at least."

"for he is such a disagreeable man, that it would be quite a misfortune to be liked by him."

"Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery."

"But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way."

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

"If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad."

"Indulge your imagination in every possible flight."

"Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing; but I have never been in love ; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall."

"Anne hoped she had outlived the age of blushing; but the age of emotion she certainly had not."

"It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does.
And men take care that they should."

"She told the story, however, with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in any thing ridiculous."

"She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning."

"There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time."

"There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere."

"Mr. Knightley, if I have not spoken, it is because I am afraid I will awaken myself from this dream."

"In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however unequally they may be returned. It is natural that obligation should be felt, and if I could feel gratitude, I would now thank you. But I cannot–I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to anyone. It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be of short duration. The feelings which, you tell me, have long prevented the acknowledgment of your regard, can have little difficulty in overcoming it after this explanation.”

Mr. Darcy, who was leaning against the mantelpiece with his eyes fixed on her face, seemed to catch her words with no less resentment than surprise. His complexion became pale with anger, and the disturbance of his mind was visible in every feature. He was struggling for the appearance of composure, and would not open his lips till he believed himself to have attained it. The pause was to Elizabeth’s feelings dreadful. At length, with a voice of forced calmness, he said:

And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting! I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little endeavour at civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance.”

I might as well inquire,” replied she, “why with so evident a desire of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil?"


"My good opinion once lost is lost forever."

"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 please, no reference to examples in books. 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."

"Elinor could sit still no longer. She almost ran out of the room, and as soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first she thought would never cease."

"There is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions."

"I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these.
- Mr. Darcy"

"They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects."

"Every savage can dance."

"It is amazing to me, " said Bingley, "How young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are."
All young ladies accomplished? My dear Charles, what do you mean?"
Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens and net purses. I scarcely know any one who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time without being informed that she was very accomplished."
Your list of the common extent of accomplishments," said Darcy, "has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half a dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished."
Nor I, I am sure." said Miss Bingley.
Then," observed Elizabeth, "you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman."
Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it."
Oh! certainly," cried his faithful assistant, "no one can really be esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved."
All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."
I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder at your knowing any."

"To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive."

"How little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue."

"To her own heart it was a delightful affair, to her imagination it was even a ridiculous one, but to her reason, her judgment, it was completely a puzzle."

"I have been used to consider poetry as the _food_ of love," said Darcy.

"Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is
strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I
am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away."

"Is not general incivility the very essence of love?"

Eleanor went to her room "where she was free to think and be wretched."

"Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you." (Captain Wentworth to Anne)"

"His cold politeness, his ceremonious grace, were worse than anything."

"She understood him. He could not forgive her,-but he could not be unfeeling. Though condemning her for the past, and considering it with high and unjest resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer, without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder of former sentiment; it was an impuse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart, which she could not contemplate without emotions so compounded of pleasure and pain, that she knew not which prevailed."

"You expect me to account for opinions which you choose to call mine, but which I have never acknowledged."

"And to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."

"What are you thinking of so earnestly?" said he, as they walked back to the ballroom; "not of your partner, I hope, for, by that shake of the head, your meditations are not satisfactory."

Catherine coloured, and said, "I was not thinking of anything."

That is artful and deep, to be sure; but I had rather be told at once that you will not tell me."

Well then, I will not."

Thank you; for now we shall soon be acquainted, as I am authorized to tease you on this subject whenever we meet, and nothing in the world advances intimacy so much."

"My fingers,' said Elizabeth, 'do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many woman's do. They have not the same force of rapidity and do not possess the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault--because I would not take the trouble if practicing. It is not that I do not believe my fingers as capable as any other woman's of superior execution.'
Darcy smiled and said, 'You are perfectly right."

"Next to being married, a girl likes being crossed in love a little now and again."

"I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man."

"If you were to give me forty such men, I never could be so happy as you. Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your happiness. No, no, let me shift for myself; and, perhaps, if I have very good luck, I may meet with another Mr. Collins in time."

"Her pleasure 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 season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness--that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling."

"She was one of those, who, having, once begun, would be always in love."

"I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him.
-Emma Woodhouse"

"Why not seize the pleasure at once; how often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparations."

"However, he wrote some verses on her, and very pretty they were.”
“And so ended his affection,” said Elizabeth impatiently. “There has been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!”
“I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love,” said Darcy.
“Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away."

"Mr. Elliot was rational, discreet, polished, – but he was not open. There was never any burst of feeling, any warmth of indignation or delight, at the evil or good of others. This, to Anne, was a decided imperfection. Her early impressions were incurable. She prized the frank, the open-hearted, the eager character beyond all others. Warmth and enthusiasm did captivate her still. She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped."

"She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should meet."

"How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book!"

"my good qualities are under your protection, and you are to exaggerate them as much as possible; and, in return, it belongs to me to find occasion for teasing and quarreling with you as often as may be..."

"We will not quarrel for the greater share of blame annexed to that evening,” said Elizabeth. “The conduct of neither, if strictly examined, will be irreproachable; but since then, we have both, I hope, improved in civility.”
I cannot be so easily reconciled to myself. The recollection of what I then said, of my conduct, my manners, my expressions during the whole of it, is now, and has been many months, inexpressibly painful to me. Your reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget: ’had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.’ Those were your words. You know not, you can scarcely conceive, how they have tortured me;–though it was some time, I confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow their justice."

"It's such a happiness when good people get together."

"Mr. Darcy began to feel the danger of paying Elizabeth too much attention."

"It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;—it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others."

"And you are never to stir out of doors till you can prove that you have spent ten minutes of every day in a rational manner."

"The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance."

"Yes, you know enough of my frankness to believe me capable of that. After abusing you so abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all your relations.”
-Elizabeth Bennet"

"I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my life, & if it were indispensable for me to keep it up & never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No - I must keep my own style & go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other."

"The wisest and the best of men, nay, the wisest and best of their actions, may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke."

"I must have my share in the conversation…"

"Heaven forbid! -- That would be the greatest misfortune of all! -- To find a man agreeable whom one is determined to hate! -- Do not wish me such an evil."

"You must be the best judge of your own happiness."

"Teach us...... that we may feel the importance of every day, of every hour, as it passes."

"Oh! you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general. You never see fault in any body. All the world are good and agreeable in your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of a human being in my life."
"I would wish not to be hasty in censuring any one; but I always speak what I think."

"The less said the better."

"We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don't care for."

"The evening ended with dancing. On its being proposed, Anne offered her services, as usual, and though her eyes would sometimes fill with tears as she sat at the instrument, she was extremely glad to be employed, and desired nothing in return but to be unobserved."

"They parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a mutual desire of never meeting again."

"I have not wanted syllables where actions have spoken so plainly."

"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."

"I do regard her as one who is too modest for the world in general to be aware of half her accomplishments, and too highly accomplished for modesty to be natural of any other woman."

"One word from you shall silence me forever."

"Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor...which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony...
Quote from a Jane Austen Letter 13 March, 1817"

"You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.

-Mr. Darcy"

"You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever."

"We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the eclat of a proverb."

"I certainly have not the talent which some people possess, of conversing easily with those I have never seen before."

"I will only add, God bless you.
-Fitzwilliam Darcy"

"If things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next."

"Love which did not build a foundation on good sense was doomed. "

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

"Soon, however, she began to reason with herself, and try to be feeling less. Eight years, almost eight years had passed, since all had been given up. How absurd to be resuming the agitation which such an interval had banished into distance and indistinctness! What might not eight years do? Events of every description, changes, alienations, removals,--all, all must be comprised in it; and oblivion of the past--how natural, how certain too! It included nearly a third part of her own life.

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

"Nothing amuses me more than the easy manner with which everybody settles the abundance of those who have a great deal less than themselves."

"This is an evening of wonders, indeed!"

"I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any."

"It was told to me, it was in a manner forced on me by the very person herself whose prior engagement ruined all my prospects, and told me, as I thought, with triumph. This person's suspicions, therefore, I have had to oppose by endeavouring to appear indifferent where I have been most deeply interested; and it has not been only once; I have had her hopes and exultations to listen to again and again. I have known myself to be divided from Edward forever, without hearing one circumstance that could make me less desire the connection. Nothing has proved him unworthy; nor has anything declared him indifferent to me. I have had to content against the unkindness of his sister and the insolence of his mother, and have suffered the punishment of an attachment without enjoying its advantages. And all this has been going on at the time when, as you to o well know, it has not been my only unhappiness. If you can think me capable of ever feeling, surely you may suppose that I have suffered now."

"You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner." (Elizabeth Bennett)"

"I do not cough for my own amusement."

"I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress."

"I never could be so happy as you. Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your happiness."

"To love is to burn, to be on fire."

"[H]is first purpose was to explain himself, and before they reached Mr. Allen's grounds he had done it so well that Catherine did not think it could ever be repeated too often. She was assured of his affection; and that heart in return was solicited, which, perhaps, they pretty equally knew was already entirely his own; for, though Henry was now sincerely attached to her, though he felt and delighted in all the excellencies of her character and truly loved her society, I must confess that his affection originated in nothing better than gratitude, or, in other words, that a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought. It is a new circumstance in romance, I acknowledge, and dreadfully derogatory of an heroine's dignity; but if it be as new in common life, the credit of a wild imagination will at least be all my own."

"Cold-hearted Elinor! Oh! Worse than cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise.--Marianne Dashwood"

"Is not poetry the food of love?"

"It was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now. "

"I am all astonishment."

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

"Success supposes endeavour."

"When once married people begin to attack me with, 'Oh! you will think very differently, when you are married,' I can only say, 'No I shall not'; and then they say again, 'Yes you will,' and there is an end to it."

"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 person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."

"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 yielding and indecisive a character, that no influence over it can be depended on. You are never sure of a good impression being durable; everybody may sway it. Let those who would be happy be firm."

"Such squeamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity are not worth a regret."

"We are all fools in love"

"Oh!” said she, “I heard you before, but I could not immediately determine what to say in reply. You wanted me, I know, to say ‘Yes,’ that you might have the pleasure of despising my taste; but I always delight in overthrowing those kind of schemes, and cheating a person of their premeditated contempt. I have, therefore made up my mind to tell you, that I do not want to dance a reel at all--and now despise me if you dare.”
“Indeed I do not dare."

"Here and there, human nature may be great in times of trial, but generally speaking it is its weakness and not its strength that appears in a sick chamber; it is selfishness and impatience rather than generosity and fortitude, that one hears of. There is so little real friendship in the world! – and unfortunately' (speaking low and tremulously) 'there are so many who forget to think seriously till it is almost too late."

"Of this she was perfectly unaware; to her he was only the man who had made himself agreeable nowhere, and who had not thought her handsome enough to dance with."

"My affections and wishes have not changed, but one word from you will silence me forever. If, however, your feelings have changed, I would have to tell you: you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love... I love... I love you. And I never wish to be parted from you from this day on."

"A person who is knowingly bent on bad behavior, gets upset when better
behavior is expected of them."

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

"she thought it was the misfortune of poetry, to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly, were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly."

"I walk: I prefer walking."

"There is a quickness of perception in some, a nicety in the discernment of character, a natural penetration, in short, which no experience in others can equal..."

"He could not forgive her, but he could not be unfeeling. Though condemning her for the past, and considering it with high and unjust resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer, without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder of former sentiment; it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart, which she could not contemplate without emotions so compounded of pleasure and pain, that she knew not which prevailed."

"My dearest Emma," said he, "for dearest you will always be, whatever the event of this hour's conversation, my dearest, most beloved Emma -- tell me at once. Say 'No,' if it is to be said." She could really say nothing. "You are silent," he cried, with great animation; "absolutely silent! at present I ask no more."

Emma was almost ready to sink under the agitation of this moment. The dread of being awakened from the happiest dream, was perhaps the most prominent feeling.

"I cannot make speeches, Emma," he soon resumed; and in a tone of such sincere, decided, intelligible tenderness as was tolerably convincing. "If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it. Bear with the truths I would tell you now, dearest Emma, as well as you have borne with them. The manner, perhaps, may have as little to recommend them. God knows, I have been a very indifferent lover. But you understand me. Yes, you see, you understand my feelings and will return them if you can. At present, I ask only to hear, once to hear your voice."

"I am excessively fond of a cottage; there is always so much comfort, so much elegance about them. And I protest, if I had any money to spare, I should buy a little land and build one myself, within a short distance of London, where I might drive myself down at any time, and collect a few friends about me and be happy. I advise everybody who is going to build, to build a cottage."

"It is very difficult for the prosperous to be humble."

"A fondness for reading must be an education in itself."

"Life, if you live it right, keeps surprising you, and the thing that keeps surprising you the most…is yourself"

"the Musgroves had had the ill fortune of a very troublesome, hopeless son, and the good fortune to lose him before he reached his twentieth year."

"Had Elizabeth been able to encounter his eye, she might have seen how well the expression of heartfelt delight, diffused over his face, became him; but, though she could not look, she could listen, and he told her of feelings, which, in proving of what importance she was to him, made his affection every moment more valuable."

"We must not be so ready to fancy ourselves intentionally injured. We must not expect a lively young man to be always so guarded and circumspect. It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does."

"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."

"This sweetest and best of all creatures, faultless in spite of all her faults."

"Where the heart is really attached, I know very well how little one can be pleased with the attention of any body else."

"Mrs. Jennings was a widow, with an ample jointure. She had only two daughters, both of whom she had lived to see respectably married, and she had now therefore nothing to do but to marry all the rest of the world."

"Books--oh! no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with the same
feelings."

"I am sorry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at least be
no want of subject. We may compare our different opinions."

"It has sunk him, I cannot say how much it has sunk him in my opinion. So unlike what a man should be!-None of that upright integrity, that strict adherence to truth and principle, that distain of trick and littleness, which a man should display in every transaction of his life."

"You have qualities which I had not before supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you."

"When any two young people take it into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance to carry their point, be they ever so poor, or ever so imprudent, or ever so little likely to be necessary to each other's ultimate comfort."

"His own enjoyment, or his own ease, was, in every particular, his ruling principle."

"Obstinate, headstrong girl!"

"she was oppressed, she was overcome by her own felicity; and happily disposed as is the human mind to be easily familiarized with any change for the better, it required several hours to give sedateness to her spirits, or any degree of tranquillity to her heart."

"Yes, I found myself, by insensible degrees, sincerely fond of her; and the happiest hours of my life were what I spent with her."

"We do not suffer by accident."

"It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley."

"You judge very properly," said Mr. Bennet, "and it is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous study?"
"They arise chiefly from what is passing at the time, and thought I sometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to give them as unstudied an air as possible."
Mr. Bennet's expectations were fully answered. His cousin was as absurd as he had hoped, and he listened with the keenest enjoyment, maintaining at the same time the most resolute composure of countenance, and except in an occasional glance at Elizabeth, requiring no partner in his pleasure."

"It was a delightful visit;-perfect, in being much too short."

"Vanity, not love, has been my folly."

"If this man had not twelve thousand a year, he would be a very stupid fellow."

"There is a monsterous deal of stupid quizzing, & common-place nonsense talked, but scarcely any wit."

"You are fond of history! And so are Mr. Allen and my father; and I have two brothers who do not dislike it. So many instances within my small circle of friends is remarkable! At this rate, I shall not pity the writers of history any longer. If people like to read their books, it is all very well, but to be at so much trouble in filling great volumes, which, as I used to think, nobody would willingly ever look into, to be labouring only for the torment of little boys and girls, always struck me as a hard fate; and though I know it is all very right and necessary, I have often wondered at the person's courage that could sit down on purpose to do it."

"Yes," replied Darcy, who could contain himself no longer, "but that was when I first knew her; for it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance."

"Always resignation and acceptance. Always prudence and honour and duty. Elinor, where is your heart?"

"They gave themselves up wholly to their sorrow, seeking increase of wretchedness in every reflection that could afford it, and resolved against ever admitting consolation in future. "

"It would be difficult to say which had seen highest perfection in the other, or which had been the happiest: she, in receiving his declarations and proposals, or he in having them accepted."

"Money is the best recipe for happiness."

"Mr. Collins is a conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man; you know he is, as well as I do; and you must feel, as well as I do, that the woman who married him cannot have a proper way of thinking."

"My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them──by which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents."

"Did not you? I did for you. But that is one great difference between us. Compliments always take you by surprise, and me never. "

"A family of ten children will be always called a fine family, where there are heads and arms and legs enough for the number."

"We all love to instruct, though we can teach only what is not worth knowing."

"Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies."

"No- I cannot talk of books in a ballroom; my head is always full of something else."

"Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?"

"She certainly did not hate him. No; hatred had vanished long ago, and she had almost as long been ashamed of ever feeling a dislike against him, that could be so called. The respect created by the conviction of his valuable qualities, though at first unwillingly admitted, had for some time ceased to be repugnant to her feelings; and it was now heightened into somewhat of a friendlier nature, by the testimony so highly in his favour, and bringing forward his disposition in so amiable a light, which yesterday had produced. But above all, above respect and esteem, there was a motive within her of good will which could not be overlooked. It was gratitude.--Gratitude not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough, to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection. He who, she had been persuaded, would avoid her as his greatest enemy, seemed, on this accidental meeting, most eager to preserve the acquaintance, and without any indelicate display of regard, or any peculiarity of manner, where their two selves only were concerned, was soliciting the good opinion of her friends, and bent on making her known to his sister. Such a change in a man of so much pride, excited not only astonishment but gratitude--for to love, ardent love, it must be attributed; and as such its impression on her was of a sort to be encouraged, as by no means unpleasing, though it could not exactly be defined."

"I have changed my mind, and changed the trimmings of my cap this morning; they are now such as you suggested."

"Half the sum of attraction, on either side, might have been enough, for he had nothing to do, and she had hardly any body to love." (of Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth, Persuasion)"

"..that sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself"

"There, he had seen every thing to exalt in his estimation the woman he had lost, and there begun to deplore the pride, the folly, the madness of resentment, which had kept him from trying to regain her when thrown in his way."

"She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped."

"A report of a most alarming nature reached me two days ago."

"I come here with no expectations, only to profess, now that I am at liberty to do so, that my heart is and always will be yours."

"My style of writing is very diffrent from yours. "

"It sometimes is a disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection from the object of it, she may loose the opportunity of fixing him."

"An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged; no harm can be done"

"I will not say that your mulberry trees are dead; but I am afraid they're not alive. "

"When the evening was over, Anne could not be amused…nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination."

"Miss Bates…had never boasted either beauty or cleverness. Her youth had passed without distinction, and her middle of life was devoted to the care of a failing mother, and the endeavour to make a small income go as far as possible. And yet she was a happy woman, and a woman whom no one named without good-will. It was her own universal goodwill and contented temper which worked such wonders. She loved every body, was interested in every body’s happiness and quick-sighted to every body’s merits; thought herself a most fortunate creature, and surrounded with blessings in such an excellent mother and so many good neighbours and friends, and a home that wanted for nothing. The simplicity and cheerfulness of her nature, her contented and grateful spirit, were a recommendation to every body and a mine of felicity to herself."

"That loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable-- that one false step involves her in endless ruin-- that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful-- and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behavior towards the undeserving of the opposite sex." ~Mary Bennett, P&P"

"It taught me to hope," said he, "as I had scarcely ever allowed myself to hope before." Mr. Darcy - Pride and Prejudice"

"Whom are you going to dance with?' asked Mr. Knightley.
She hesitated a moment and then replied, 'With you, if you will ask me.'
Will you?' said he, offering his hand.
Indeed I will. You have shown that you can dance, and you know we are not really so much brother and sister as to make it at all improper.'
Brother and sister! no, indeed."

"Had I not been bound to silence I could have provided proof enough of a broken heart, even for you."

"I have never yet found that the advice of a Sister could prevent a young Man's being in love if he chose it."

"Those who have not more must be satisfied with what they have."

"Pride is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed, that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what would have others think of us."

"What have wealth or grandeur to do with happiness?"
Grandeur has but little," said Elinor, "but wealth has much to do with it."
Elinor, for shame!" Said Marianne. "Money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it..."

"If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient."

"To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of 26 and 18 is to do pretty well"

"Do you dance, Mr. Darcy?"
Darcy: "Not if I can help it!"

Sir William: "What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! There is nothing like dancing, after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies."
Mr. Darcy: "Certainly, sir; and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst the less polished societies of the world; every savage can dance."

"The power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. - Mr Darcy"

"A woman of seven and twenty, said Marianne, after pausing a moment, can never hope to feel or inspire affection again."

"To be sure you know no actual good of me, but nobody thinks of that when they fall in love."

"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 mind, I have made it."

"I have never yet known what it was to separate esteem from love"

"And so ended his affection," said Elizabeth impatiently. "There has
been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first
discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!"

"I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love," said Darcy."

"Upon the whole, therefore, she found, what has been sometimes found before, that an event to which she had looked forward with impatient desire, did not in taking place, bring all the satisfaction she had promised herself. It was consequently necessary to name some other period for the commencement of actual felicity; to have some other point on which her wishes and hopes might be fixed, and by again enjoying the pleasure of anticipation, console herself for the present, and prepare for another disappointment."

"Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be."

"She denied none of it aloud, and agreed to none of it in private."

"Good-humoured, unaffected girls, will not do for a man who has been used to sensible women. They are two distinct orders of being."

"My characters shall have, after a little trouble, all that they desire."

"I have had to contend against the unkindness of his sister, and the insolence of his mother; and have suffered the punishment of an attachment, without enjoying its advantages."

"Thus much indeed he was obliged to acknowledge - that he had been constant unconsciously, nay unintentionally; that he had meant to forget her, and believed it to be done. He had imagined himself indifferent, when he had only been angry; and he had been unjust to her merits, because he had been a sufferer from them."

"Catherine Morland in Jane Austen's _Northanger Abbey_ comments on her
life at home and her mother educating her younger siblings:

"You think me foolish to call instruction a torment, but if you had
been as much used as myself to hear poor little children first
learning their letters and then learning to spell, if you had ever
seen how stupid they can be for a whole morning together, and how
tired my poor mother is at the end of it, as I am in the habit of
seeing almost every day of my life at home, you would allow that to
*torment* and to *instruct* might sometimes be used as synonimous
words." (Chapter 14)


[Side note: Catherine's mother is the wife of a clergyman and mother of 10.]"

"Her form, though not so correct as her sister's, in having the advantage of height, was more striking; and her face was so lovely, that when in the common cant of praise she was called a beautiful girl, truth was less violently outraged than usually happens."

"The house seemed to have all the comforts of little Children, dirt and litter."

"There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do if he chooses, and that is his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and resolution. - Mr. Knightley"

"There is nothing like employment, active indispensable employment, for relieving sorrow. Employment, even melancholy, may dispel melancholy."

"I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow."

"Oh! write, write. Finish it at once. Let there be an end of this suspense. Fix, commit, condemn yourself."

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

"It is such a happiness when good people get together -- and they always do."

"There is nothing lost, but may be found, if sought". (No hay nada perdido, que no pueda encontrarse, si se lo busca) Es una parte del poema que le lee el Coronel Brandon a Marianne, en la película "Sensatez y Sentimientos". Amo esa escena."

"A young woman in love always looks like Patience on a monument Smiling at Grief."

"Nay," cried Bingley, "this is too much, to remember at night all the foolish things that were said in the morning."

"Her partner now drew near, and said, "That gentleman would have put me out of patience, had he stayed with you half a minute longer. He has no business to withdraw the attention of my partner from me. We have entered into a contract of mutual agreeableness for the space of an evening, and all our agreeableness belongs solely to each other for that time. Nobody can fasten themselves on the notice of one, without injuring the rights of the other. I consider a country-dance as an emblem of marriage. Fidelity and complaisance are the principal duties of both; and those men who do not choose to dance or marry themselves, have no business with the partners or wives of their neighbours."

But they are such very different things!"

-- That you think they cannot be compared together."

To be sure not. People that marry can never part, but must go and keep house together. People that dance only stand opposite each other in a long room for half an hour."

And such is your definition of matrimony and dancing. Taken in that light certainly, their resemblance is not striking; but I think I could place them in such a view. You will allow, that in both, man has the advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal; that in both, it is an engagement between man and woman, formed for the advantage of each; and that when once entered into, they belong exclusively to each other till the moment of its dissolution; that it is their duty, each to endeavour to give the other no cause for wishing that he or she had bestowed themselves elsewhere, and their best interest to keep their own imaginations from wandering towards the perfections of their neighbours, or fancying that they should have been better off with anyone else. You will allow all this?"

Yes, to be sure, as you state it, all this sounds very well; but still they are so very different. I cannot look upon them at all in the same light, nor think the same duties belong to them."

In one respect, there certainly is a difference. In marriage, the man is supposed to provide for the support of the woman, the woman to make the home agreeable to the man; he is to purvey, and she is to smile. But in dancing, their duties are exactly changed; the agreeableness, the compliance are expected from him, while she furnishes the fan and the lavender water. That, I suppose, was the difference of duties which struck you, as rendering the conditions incapable of comparison."

No, indeed, I never thought of that."

Then I am quite at a loss. One thing, however, I must observe. This disposition on your side is rather alarming. You totally disallow any similarity in the obligations; and may I not thence infer that your notions of the duties of the dancing state are not so strict as your partner might wish? Have I not reason to fear that if the gentleman who spoke to you just now were to return, or if any other gentleman were to address you, there would be nothing to restrain you from conversing with him as long as you chose?"

Mr. Thorpe is such a very particular friend of my brother's, that if he talks to me, I must talk to him again; but there are hardly three young men in the room besides him that I have any acquaintance with."

And is that to be my only security? Alas, alas!"

Nay, I am sure you cannot have a better; for if I do not know anybody, it is impossible for me to talk to them; and, besides, I do not want to talk to anybody."

Now you have given me a security worth having; and I shall proceed with courage."

"There was no being displeased with such an encourager, for his admiration made him discern a likeness before it was possible."

"I have frequently detected myself in such kind of mistakes... in a total misapprehension of character at some point or other: fancying people so much more gay or grave, or ingenious or stupid than they really are, and I can hardly tell why, or in what the deception originated. Sometimes one is guided by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge."

"I use the verb 'to torment,' as I observed to be your own method, instead of 'to instruct,' supposing them to be now admitted as synonymous."

"Miss Bingley was very deeply mortified by Darcy's marriage; but as she thought it advisable to retain the right of visiting at Pemberley, she dropt all her resentment; was fonder than ever of Georgiana, almost as attentive to Darcy as heretofore, and paid off every arrear of civility to Elizabeth.

Pemberley was now Georgiana's home; and the attachment of the sisters was exactly what Darcy had hoped to see. They were able to love each other, even as well as they intended. Georgiana had the highest opinion in the world of Elizabeth; though at first she often listened with an astonishment bordering on alarm at her lively, sportive manner of talking to her brother. He, who had always inspired in herself a respect which almost overcame her affection, she now saw the object of open pleasantry. Her mind received knowledge which had never before fallen in her way. By Elizabeth's instructions she began to comprehend that a woman may take liberties with her husband which a brother will not always allow in a sister more than ten years younger than himself.

Lady Catherine was extremely indignant on the marriage of her nephew; and as she gave way to all the genuine frankness of her character, in her reply to the letter which announced its arrangement, she sent him language so very abusive, especially of Elizabeth, that for some time all intercourse was at an end. But at length, by Elizabeth's persuasion, he was prevailed on to overlook the offence, and seek a reconciliation; and, after a little farther resistance on the part of his aunt, her resentment gave way, either to her affection for him, or her curiosity to see how his wife conducted herself: and she condescended to wait on them at Pemberley, in spite of that pollution which its woods had received, not merely from the presence of such a mistress, but the visits of her uncle and aunt from the city.

With the Gardiners they were always on the most intimate terms. Darcy, as well as Elizabeth, really loved them; and they were both ever sensible of the warmest gratitude towards the persons who, by bringing her into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them. "

"Elinor was to be the comforter of others in her own distresses, no less than in theirs; and all the comfort that could be given by assurances of her own composure of mind, and a very earnest vindication of Edward from every charge but of imprudence, was readily offered."

"That is what I like; that is what a young man ought to be. Whatever be his pursuits, his eagerness in them should know no moderation, and leave him no sense of fatigue."

"Incline us oh God! to think humbly of ourselves, to be severe only in the examination of our own conduct, to consider our fellow-creatures with kindness, and to judge of all they say and do with that charity which we would desire from them ourselves."

"How she might have felt had there been no Captain Wentworth in the case, was not worth enquiry; for there was a Captain Wentworth: and be the conclusion of the present suspense good or bad, her affection would be his forever. Their union, she believed, could not divide her more from other men, than their final separation."

"I can always live by my pen."

"If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard?"

"I am determined that nothing but the deepest love could ever induce me into matrimony. [Elizabeth]"

"I can easily believe it. Women of that class have great opportunities, and if they are intelligent may be well worth listening to. Such varieites of human nature as they are in the habit of witnessing! And it is not merely in its follies, that they are read; for they see it occasionally under every circumstance that can be most interesting or affecting. What instances must pass before them of ardent, disinterested, self-denying attachment, of heroism, fortitude, patience, resignation-- of all the sacrifices that ennoble us most. A sick chamber may often furnish the worth of volumes."

"if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. If she can hesitate as to `Yes,' she ought to say `No' directly. It is not a state to be safely entered into with doubtful feelings, with half a heart."

"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, to read novels together. Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel–writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding — joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers. And while the abilities of the nine–hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens — there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. “I am no novel–reader — I seldom look into novels — Do not imagine that I often read novels — It is really very well for a novel.” Such is the common cant. “And what are you reading, Miss — ?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best–chosen language. Now, had the same young lady been engaged with a volume of the Spectator, instead of such a work, how proudly would she have produced the book, and told its name; though the chances must be against her being occupied by any part of that voluminous publication, of which either the matter or manner would not disgust a young person of taste: the substance of its papers so often consisting in the statement of improbable circumstances, unnatural characters, and topics of conversation which no longer concern anyone living; and their language, too, frequently so coarse as to give no very favourable idea of the age that could endure it."

"But your mind is warped by an innate principle of general integrity, and, therefore, not accessible to the cool reasonings of family partiality, or a desire of revenge."

"it is a tragedy and therefore not worth reading..."

"I certainly must,' said she. 'This sensation of listlessness, weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself, this feeling of everything's being dull and insipid about the house! I must be in love; I should be the oddest creature in the world if I were not."

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

"You ought certainly to forgive them as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing."

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

"To yield readily--easily--to the persuasion of a friend is no merit.... To yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of either."

"She would have liked to know how he felt as to a meeting. Perhaps indifferent, if indifference could exist under such circumstances. He must be either indifferent or unwilling. Has he wished ever to see her again, he need not have waited till this time; he would have done what she could not but believe that in his place she should have done long ago, when events had been early giving him the indepencence which alone had been wanting."

"She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It was an union that must have been to the advantage of both: by her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved; and from his judgement, information, and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance."

"And we mean to treat you all,' added Lydia, 'but you must lend us the money, for we have just spent ours at the shop out there."

"Respect for right of conduct is felt by everybody."

"to hope was to expect"

"You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased."

"her spirits wanted the solitude and silence which only numbers could give."

"At ten, she was moreover noisy and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green slope at the back of the house. At fifteen, appearances were mending; she began to curl her hair and long for balls; her complexion improved, her features were softened by plumpness and colour, her eyes gained more animation, and her figure more consequence. Her love of dirt gave away to inclination for finery, and she grew clean as she grew smart. To look almost pretty, is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life, than a beauty from her cradle can ever imagine."

"Captain Harvile: Poor Phoebe, she would not have forgotten him so soon. It was not in her nature.

Anne Elliot: It would not be in the nature of any woman who truly loved.

Captain Harvile: Do you claim that for your sex?

Anne Elliot: We do not forget you as soon as you forget us. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us. You always have business of some sort or other to take you back into the world.

Captain Harvile: I won't allow it to be any more man's nature than women's to be inconstant or to forget those they love or have loved. I believe the reverse. I believe... Let me just observe that all histories are against you, all stories, prose, and verse. I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which did not have something to say on women's fickleness.

Anne Elliot: But they were all written by men. "

"She mediated, by turns, on broken promises and broken arches, phaetons and false hangings, Tilneys and trap-doors."

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

"I would much rather have been merry than wise."

"The world may know my words, but it has no such privileges with my heart"

"He was directly invited to join their party, but he declined it, observing that he could imagine but two motives for their choosing to walk up and down the room together, with either of which motives his joining them would interfere. "What could he mean? She was dying to know what could be his meaning?"--and asked Elizabeth whether she could at all understand him?
"Not at all," was her answer; "but depend upon it, he means to be severe on us, and our surest way of disappointing him will be to ask nothing about it."

"I wish I might take this for a compliment; but to be so easily seen through I am afraid is pitiful."

"It is this delightful habit of journalizing which largely contributes to form the easy style of writing for which ladies are so generally celebrated. Every body allows that the talent of writing is particularly female. Nature might have done something, but I am sure it must be essentially assisted by the practice of keeping a journal."

"He was in love, very much in love; and it was a love which, operating on an active, sanguine spirit, of more warmth than delicacy, made her affection appear of greater consequence, because it was witheld, and determined him to have the glory, as well as the felicity of forcing her to love him."

"An interval of meditation, serious and grateful, was the best corrective of everything dangerous."

"Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom, so common with novel-writers, of degrading, by their contemptuous censure, the very performances to the number of which they are themselves adding; joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! if the heroine of one novel be not patronised by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another- we are an injured body."

"Ah, mother! how do you do?' said he, giving her a hearty shake of the hand; 'where did you get that quiz of a hat? it makes you look like an old witch...'
On his two younger sisters he then bestowed an equal portion of his fraternal tenderness, for he asked each of them how they did, and observed that they both looked very ugly."

"Perfect happiness, even in memory, is not common."

"An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents."

"But Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an Englishman's constitution. His thoughts and beauties are so spread abroad that one touches them everywhere; one is intimate with him by instinct. No man of any brain can open at a good part of one of his plays without falling into the flow of his meaning immediately."

"She wanted to be alone. Her mind was in a state of flutter and wonder, which made it impossible for her to be collected. She was in dancing, singing, exclaiming spirits; and till she had moved about, and talked to herself, and laughed and reflected, she could be fit for nothing rational."

"What a shame, for I dearly love to laugh."

"However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters."

"I have not a doubt of your doing very well together. Your tempers are by no means unlike. You are each of you so complying, that nothing will ever be resolved on; so easy, that every servant will cheat you; and so generous, that you will always exceed your income."

"I often think," she said, "that there is nothing so bad as parting with one's friends. One seems to forlorn without them."

"How could you begin?’ said she. ‘I can comprehend your going on when you had once made a beginning, but what could set you off in the first place?’ ‘I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which had laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun."

"With a book he was regardless of time."

"But remember that the pain of parting from friends will be felt by every body at times, whatever be their education or state."

"And what am I to do on the occasion? -- It seems an hopeless business."

"She tried to be calm, and leave things to take their course; and tried to dwell much on this argument of rational dependence – “Surely, if there be constant attachment on each side, our hearts must understand each other ere long. We are not boy and girl, to be captiously irritable, misled by every moment’s inadvertence, and wantonly playing with our own happiness.” And yet, a few minutes afterwards, she felt as if their being in company with each other, under their present circumstances, could only be exposing them to inadvertencies and misconstructions of the most mischievous kind."

"Her mind was less difficult to develop."

"Life could do nothing for her, beyond giving time for a better preparation for death."

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste it's fragrance on the desert air."

"I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!- Elizabeth Bennet"

"No, indeed, I shall grant you nothing. I always take the part of my own sex. I do indeed. I give you notice-- You will find me a formidable antagonist on that point. I always stand up for women."

"I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like"

"A mother would have been always present. A mother would have been a constant friend; her influence would have been beyond all other. "

"That Lady Russell of steady age and character, and extrememly well provided for,should have no thought of a second marriage needs no apology to the public, which is rather apt to be unreasonalbly discontented when a woman 'does' marry again,than when she does not, but Sir William's continuing in singleness requires explanation."

"a persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favor of happiness, as a very resolute character."

"What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited sketches, full of variety and glow? How could I possibly join them on to the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labour?"

"We can all begin freely—a slight preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement."

"My good opinion once lost, is lost forever."

"It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not, what they ought to be, so are the nation."

"I don't approve of surprises. The pleasure is never enhanced and the inconvenience is considerable."

"The pause was to Elizabeth's feelings dreadful. At length, with a voice of forced calmness, he said: "And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting! I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little endeavour at civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance."
"I might as well inquire," replied she, "why with so evident a desire of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil? But I have other provocations. You know I have. Had not my feelings decided against you— had they been indifferent, or had they even been favourable, do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?"

"I take no leave of you, Miss Bennet: I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased."

"I meant to be uncommonly clever in taking so decided a dislike to him, without any reason. It is such a spur to one's genius, such an opening for wit to have a dislike of that kind. One may be continually abusive without saying any thing just; but one cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty."

"Every young lady may feel for my heroine in this critical moment, for every young lady has at some time or other known the same agitation."

"Expect a most agreeable letter, for not being overburdened with subject (having nothing at all to say), there shall be no check to my genius from beginning to end."

"he shewed himself so intimately acquainted with all the tenderest songs of the one poet, and all the impassioned descriptions of hopeless agony of the other; he repeated, with such tremulous feeling, the various lines which imaged a broken heart, or a mind destroyed by wretchedness, and looked so entirely as if he meant to be understood, that she ventured to hope he did not always read only poetry; and to say, that she thought it was the misfortune of poetry, to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly, were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly...she ventured to recommend a larger allowance of prose in his daily study."

"Nobody could catch cold by the sea; nobody wanted appetite by the sea; nobody wanted spirits; nobody wanted strength. Sea air was healing, softening, relaxing -- fortifying and bracing -- seemingly just as was wanted -- sometimes one, sometimes the other. If the sea breeze failed, the seabath was the certain corrective; and where bathing disagreed, the sea air alone was evidently designed by nature for the cure."

"Trusting that you will some time or other do me greater justice than you can do now."

"Let us have the luxury of silence."

"She was not often invited to join in the conversation of the others, nor did she desire it. Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions."

"He was not an ill-disposed young man, unless to be rather cold hearted, and rather selfish, is to be ill-disposed...."

"Depend upon it, you see but half. You see the evil, but you do not see the consolation. There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere—and those evil–minded observers, dearest Mary, who make much of a little, are more taken in and deceived than the parties themselves."

"If I am missed it will appear. I may be discovered by those who want to see me. I shall not be in any doubtful, or distant, or unapproachable region."

"One cannot creep upon a journey; one cannot help getting on faster than one has planned: and the pleasure of coming in upon one's friends before the look-out begins is worth a great deal more than any little exertion it needs."

"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."

"Not keep a journal! How are your absent cousins to understand the tenor of your life in Bath without one? How are the civilities and compliments of every day to be related as they ought to be, unless noted down every evening in a journal? How are your various dresses to be remembered, and the particular state of your complexion, and curl of your hair to be described in all their diversities, without having constant recourse to a journal?"

"... But he recommended the books which charmed her leisure hours, he encouraged her taste, and corrected her judgment; he made reading useful by talking to her of what she read, and heightened its attraction by judicious praise."

"There is no reason in the world why you should not be important where you are known. You have good sense, and a sweet temper, and I am sure you have a grateful heart, that could never receive kindness without hoping to return it. I do not know any better qualifications for a friend and companion."

"When a heroine is satisfied that she has exercised judgement with clear vision, moral principle,and common sense, she need not acquiesce to opposing viewpoints."

"You see, I am a very prosaic, unromantic, sensible sort of fellow myself; and I have always had my heart set on finding the most sensible, prudent, level-headed wife in the world. But, on the other hand, it is very important to me that she possess one very particular flaw: she must have no sense whatsoever where I myself am concerned. She would only have to take one look at me and - no matter what her steadiness of mind - she would lose it in the space of seconds... Just lately, I have sometimes thought I may have found what I have always wanted. But just lately I have also noticed she has developed a most irritating habit of looking at the ground whenever we are together. Do you think she could try to overcome it? Well, Charlotte, are you going to look at me now?"

"It was a gloomy prospect, and all that she could do was to throw a mist over it, and hope when the mist cleared away, she should see something else."

"If we have not hearts, we have eyes; and they give us torment enough."

"I perfectly agree with you, sir,' was then his remark. 'You did behave very shamefully. You never wrote a truer line."

"and talking of the dear family party which would then be restored, of their mutual pursuits and cheerful society, as the only happiness worth a wish."

"A man," said he, "must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks
people to leave their own fireside, and encounter such a day as
this, for the sake of coming to see him. He must think himself a most
agreeable fellow; I could not do such a thing. It is the greatest
absurdity--Actually snowing at this moment!--The folly of not allowing
people to be comfortable at home--and the folly of people's not staying
comfortably at home when they can!..."

"Heavens! let me not suppose that she dares go about Emma Woodhouse-ing me! But, upon my honour, there seems no limits to the licentiousness of that woman's tongue!"

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

"And such is your definition of matrimony and dancing. Taken in that light, certainly their resemblance is not striking; but I think I could place them in such a view. You will allow that in both man has the advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal; that in both it is an engagement between man and woman, formed for the advantage of each; and that when once entered into, they belong exclusively to each other till the moment of its dissolution; that it is their duty each to endeavor to give the other no cause for wishing that he or she had bestowed themselves elsewhere, and their best interest to keep their own imaginations from wandering towards the perfections of their neighbors, or fancying that they should have been better off with any one else."

"But Catherine did not know her own advantages - did not know that a good-looking girl, with an affectionate heart and a very ignorant mind, cannot fail of attracting a clever young man, unless circumstances are particularly untoward."

"We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us."

"I see what you think of me,' said he, gravely; 'I shall make but a poor figure in your journal to-morrow.'
My journal!'
Yes; I know exactly what you will say:- Friday went to the Lower Rooms; wore my sprigged muslin robe with blue trimmings- plain black shoes- appeared to much advantage; but was strangely harassed by a queer, half-witted man, who would make me dance with him, and distressed me by his nonsense."

"Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?"

Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be entirely silent for half an hour together, and yet for the advantage of some, conversation ought to be so arranged as that they may have the trouble of saying as little as possible."

"Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply; and it must be by a long and unnatural estrangement, by a divorce which no subsequent connection can justify, if such precious remains of the earliest attachments are ever entirely outlived."

"Elinor looked at him with greater astonishment than ever. She began to think that he must be in liquor..."

"The ladies here probably exchanged looks which meant, 'Men never know when things are dirty or not;' and the gentlemen perhaps thought each to himself, 'Women will have their little nonsense and needless cares."

"...faultless in spite of all her faults..."

"[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 Mrs. Thorpe talked chiefly of her children, and Mrs. Allen of her gowns."

"One had rather, on such occasions, do too much than too little."

"I never saw quite so wretched an example of what a sea-faring life can do: but to a degree, I know it is the same with them all; they are all knocked about, and exposed to every climate, and every weather, till they are not fit to be seen. It is a pity they are not knocked on the head at once, before they reach Admiral Baldwin's age."

"Every thing was to take its natural course, however, neither impelled nor assisted."

"Time did not compose her."

"Time will generally lessen the interest of every attachment not within the daily circle."

"A novel must show how the world truly is, how characters genuinely think, how events actually occur. A novel should somehow reveal the true source of our actions."

"A submissive spirit might be patient, a strong understanding would supply resolution, but here was something more; here was that elasticity of mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of herself, which was from nature alone. It was the choicest gift of Heaven; and Anne viewed her friend as one of those instances in which, by a merciful appointment, it seems designed to counterbalance almost every other want."

"As for admiration, it was always very welcome when it came, but she did not depend on it."

"Catherine hoped at least to pass uncensured through the crowd. As for admiration, it was always very welcome when it came, but she did not depend on it."

"Whether she thought of him so much, while she drank her warm wine and water, and prepared herself for bed, as to dream of him when there, cannot be ascertained; but I hope it was no more than in a slight slumber, or a morning doze at most; for if it be true, as a celebrated writer has maintained, that no young lady can be justified in falling in love before the gentleman's love is declared, it must be very improper that a young lady should dream of a gentleman before the gentleman is first known to have dreamt of her."

"Cu siguranta, nu-l ura. Nu, ura trecuse cu mult timp in urma si cam tot de atunci se nascuse senzatia de rusine pentru ca avusese fata de el un sentiment care s-ar fi putut numi astfel. Respetul fata de el, generat de credinta ca avea calitati de pret, desi cu greu acceptat la inceput, incetase de la un timp a-l mai considera in neconcordanta cu simtamintele ei, iar acum respectul acesta crescuse, se modificase, devenise un soi de prietenie, datorita marturiilor ce-i fusesera atat de favorabile si datorita luminii atat de bune in care se plasase in ziua aceea. [...] Il respecta, il stima, ii era recunoscatoare, ii dorea numai binele, ar fi vrut doar sa stie cat dorea el ca binele acela sa fie legat de ea si in ce masura ar fi fost spre fericirea amandurora sa-si foloseasca puterile, pe care-si imagina ca inca le mai are, pentru a-l face sa-si reinnoiasca cererea."

"The boy protested that she should not; she continued to declare that she would, and the argument ended only with the visit."

"It was not in her nature, however, to increase her vexations by dwelling on them. She was confident of having performed her duty, and to fret over unavoidable evils, or augment them by anxiety, was not part of her disposition."

"Know your own happiness."

"From politics, it was an easy step to silence"

"He considered the blessing of beauty as inferior only to the blessing of a baronetcy; and the Sir Walter Elliot, who united these gifts, was the constant object of his warmest respect and devotion."

"Consideration and Esteem surely follow command of Language as Admiration waits on Beauty"

"I encourage him to be in his garden as often as possible. Then he has to walk to Rosings nearly every day. ... I admit I encourage him in that also."

"Sally, or rather Sarah (for what young lady of common gentility will reach the age of sixteen without altering her name as far as she can?) must from situation be at this time the intimatre friend and confidante of her sister."

"I have observed, Mrs Elton, in the course of my life, that if things are going outwardly one month, they are sure to mend the next."


"Lady Jane Gray, who tho' inferior to her lovely Cousin the Queen of Scots, was yet an amiable young woman & famous for reading Greek while other people were hunting....Whether she really understood that language or whether such a study proceeded only from an excess of vanity for which I beleive she was always rather remarkable, is uncertain."
"El orgullo está relacionado con la opinión que tenemos de nosotros mismos; la vanidad, con lo que quisiéramos que los demás pensaran de nosotros."

"a veces es malo ser tan reservada. Si una mujer disimula su afecto al objeto mismo, puede perder la oportunidad de conquistarle;"
"Her eye fell everywhere on lawns and plantations of the freshest green; and the trees, though not fully clothed, were in that delightful state when farther beauty is known to be at hand, and when, while much is actually given to the sight, more yet remains for the imagination."

"She will never submit to any thing requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of the fancy to the understanding."

"If you are speaking of music...it is of all subjects my delight. There are few people in England I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health would have allowed her to apply. I am confident that she would have performed delightfully. - Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice"

"Such a letter was not to be soon recovered from. . . . Every moment rather brought fresh agitation. It was an overpowering happiness."

"His temper might perhaps be a little soured [...]'Mr. Palmer is just the kind of man I like,"

"...but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short."

"Is there not something wanted, Miss Price, in our language - a something between compliments and - and love - to suit the sort of friendly acquaintance we have had together?"

"It was known that they were a little acquainted, but not a syllable of real information could Emma procure as to what he truly was. “Was he handsome?” “She believed he was reckoned a very fine young man.” “Was he agreeable?” “He was generally thought so.” “Did he appear a sensible young man; a young man of information?” “At a watering-place or in a common London acquaintance it was difficult to decide on such points. Manners were all that could be safely judged of under a much longer knowledge than they had yet of Mr. Churchill. She believed everybody found his manners pleasing.” Emma could not forgive her."

"She prized the frank, the open-hearted, the eager character beyond all others. Warmth and enthusiasm did captivate her still. She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped."

"Elizabeth found that nothing was beneath this great lady's attention, which could furnish her with an occasion of dictating to others."

"I cannot help thinking that it is more natural to have flowers grow out of the head than fruit."

"I abhor every common-place phrase by which wit is intended"

"Blessed with so many resources within myself the world was not necessary to me. I could do very well without it."

"I frequently observe that one pretty face would be followed by five and thirty frights."

"Marry me. Marry me, my wonderful, darling friend."

"…her mind about as ignorant and uninformed as the female mind at seventeen usually is."

"But self, though it would intrude, could not engross her."

"There seemed a gulf impassable between them."

"I will not allow books to prove anything."

"She was humbled, she was grieved; she repented, though she hardly knew of what. She became jealous of his esteem, when she could no longer hope to be benefited by it. She wanted to hear of him, when there seemed the least chance of gaining intelligence. She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should meet."

"it is very worthwhile to be tormented for two or three years of one's life, for the sake of being able to read all the rest of it."

"Yes; he had done it. She was in the carriage, and felt that he had placed her there, that his will and his hands had done it, that she owed it to his perception of her fatigue, and his resolution to give her rest. She was very much affected by the view of his disposition towards her, which all these things made apparent. This little circumstance seemed the completion of all that had gone before. She understood him. He could not forgive her, but he could not be unfeeling. Though condemning her for the past, and considering it with high and unjust resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder of some former sentiment, it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart, which she could not contemplate without emotions so compounded of pleasure and pain, that she knew not which prevailed."

"never could I expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and always right in any man's eyes as I am in my father's..."

"To such perseverance in wilful self-deception Elizabeth would make no reply, and immediately and in silence withdrew; determined, that if he persisted in considering her repeated refusals as flattering encouragement, to apply to her father, whose behaviour at least could not be mistaken for the affectation and coquetry of an elegant female."

"[She] is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own, and with many men, I dare say, it succeeds. But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art."

"The effect of education I suppose"

"Everybody is taken in at some period or another. [...] In marriage especially. [...] There is not one in a hundred of either sex, who is not taken in when they marry. Look where I will, I see that it is so; and I feel that it must be so, when I consider that it is, of all transactions, the one in which people expect most from others, and are least honest with themselves."

"Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want."

"Only think of Mrs. Holder's being dead! Poor woman, she has done the only thing in the world she could possibly do to make one cease to abuse her."

"In addition to what has been already said of Catherine Morland's personal and mental endowments, when about to be launched into all the difficulties and dangers of a six weeks' residence in Bath, it may be stated, for the reader's more certain information, lest the following pages should otherwise fail of giving any idea of what her character is meant to be; that her heart was affectionate, her disposition cheerful and open, without conceit or affectation of any kind - her manners just removed from the awkwardness and shyness of a girl; her person pleasing, and, when in good looks, pretty - and her mind about as ignorant and uninformed as the female mind at seventeen usually is."

"You might not see one in a hundred with
gentleman so plainly written as in Mr. Knightley."

"Well, my dear," said Mr. Bennet, when Elizabeth had read the note aloud, "if your daughter should have a dangerous fit of illness—if she should die, it would be a comfort to know that it was all in pursuit of Mr. Bingley, and under your orders."

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of someone or other of their daughters."

"I thank you; but I assure you you are quite mistaken. Mr. Elton and I are very good friends, and nothing more;' and she walked on, amusing herself in the consideration of the blunders which often arise from a partial knowledge of circumstances, of the mistakes which people of high pretensions to judgment are for ever falling into; and not very well pleased with her brother for imagining her blind and ignorant, and in want of counsel."

"All the world is good and agreeable in your eyes."

"He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and every body hoped that he would never come there again."

"That is the case with this world, papa. One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of another."

"The evils arising from the loss of her uncle were neither trifling nor likely to lessen; and when thought had been freely indulged, in contrasting the past and the present, the employment of mind and dissipation of unpleasant ideas which only reading could produce made her thankfully turn to a book."

"It is wonderful, for almost all his actions may be traced to pride;-and pride has often been his best friend."

"How horrible it is to have so many people killed! And what a blessing that one cares for none of them! "

"The most incomprehensible thing in the world to a man, is a woman who rejects his offer of marriage!"

"....how good Mrs. West could have written such books and collected so many hard works, with all her family cares, is still more a matter of astonishment! Composition seems to me impossible with a head full of joints of mutton and doses of rhubarb."

"Now I must give one smirk and then we may be rational again"

"There was certainly at this moment, in Elizabeth's mind, a more gentle sensation towards the original, that she had ever felt in the height of their acquaintance.
Elizabeth's changing relationship with Darcy on first visit to Pemberley, Chapter 43."

"Reluctantly, and with much hesitation, did she then begin what might perhaps, at the end of half an hour, be termed, by the courtesy of her hearers, an explanation;"

"Where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given."

"Catherine- "How I hate the sight of an umbrella!"
Mrs. Allen- "They are disagreeable things to carry. I would much rather take a chair at any time."

But it is fortunate,'' thought she, ``that I have something to wish for. Were the whole arrangement complete, my disappointment would be certain. But here, by my carrying with me one ceaseless source of regret in my sister's absence, I may reasonably hope to have all my expectations of pleasure realized. A scheme of which every part promises delight, can never be successful; and general disappointment is only warded off by the defence of some little peculiar vexation."

"At first sight, his address is certainly not striking; and his person can hardly be called handsome, till the expression of his eyes, which are uncommonly good, and the general sweetness of his countenance, is perceived."

"people always live for ever when there is an annuity to be paid them"

"Everything nourishes what is strong already"

"The pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.
-Sense and Sensibility"

"Arguments are too much like disputes."

"MY AFFECTION AND WISHES ARE UNCHANGED BUT ONE WORD FROM YOU WILL SILENT ME ON THIS SUBJECT FOREVER."

"I do assure you, Sir, that I have no pretension whatever of that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere. I thank you again and again for the honour you have done me in your proposals, but to accept them is absolutely impossible. My feelings in every respect forbid it. Can I speak plainer? Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart."

"The anxiety, which in this state of their attachment must be the portion of Henry and Catherine, and of all who loved either, as to its final event, can hardly extend, I fear, to the bosom of my readers, who will see in the tell-tale compression of the pages before them, that we are all hastening together to perfect felicity."

"It is possible to read too many novels. Henry Tileny, Northanger Abbey"

"Too many cooks spoil the broth"

"If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him; and it will then be but poor consolation to believe the world equally in the dark. There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost any attachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all begin ‘freely’- as light preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have a heart enough to be really in love without encouragement."

"The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars and pestilences in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all--it is very tiresome."

"A natural sequel of an unnatural beginning."

"Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!"

"To say the truth,' replied Miss Crawford, 'I am something like the famous Doge at the court of Lewis XIV.; and may declare that I see no wonder in this shrubbery equal to seeing myself in it"

"As a brother, a landlord, a master, she considered how many people's happiness were in his guardianship! -- How much of pleasure or pain it was in his power to bestow! -- How much of good or evil must be done by him!"

"You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight and a half years ago. Dare not say that a man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant."

"…dearest, loveliest Elizabeth [...] By you, I was properly humbled."

"How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind!"

"The world had made him extravagant and vain - Extravagance and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish. Vanity, while seeking its own guilty triumph at the expense of another, had involved him in a real attachment, which extravagance, or at least its offspring, necessity, had required to be sacrificed. Each faulty propensity in leading him to evil, had led him likewise to punishment."

"An artist cannot do anything slovenly."

"Miss Bennet was therefore established as a sweet girl, and their brother felt authorized by such a commendation to think of her as he chose."

"You mean to frighten me, Mr Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear me? But I will not be alarmed though your sister does play so well. There is a stubbornness about me that can never bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me."

"But, perhaps, I keep no journal."

Perhaps you are not sitting in this room, and I am not sitting by you. These are points in which a doubt is equally possible. Not keep a journal! How are your absent cousins to understand the tenour of your life in Bath without one? How are the civilities and compliments of every day to be related as they ought to be, unless noted down every evening in a journal? How are your various dresses to be remembered, and the particular state of your complexion, and curl of your hair to be described in all their diversities, without having constant recourse to a journal? My dear madam, I am not so ignorant of young ladies' ways as you wish to believe me; it is this delightful habit of journaling which largely contributes to form the easy style of writing for which ladies are so generally celebrated. Everybody allows that the talent of writing agreeable letters is peculiarly female. Nature may have done something, but I am sure it must be essentially assisted by the practice of keeping a journal."

"Anne was now at hand to take up her own cause, and the sincerity of her manner being soon sufficient to convince him, where conviction was at least very agreeable, he had no farther scruples as to her being left to dine alone, though he still wanted her to join them in the evening, when the child might be at rest for the night, and kindly urged her to let him come and fetch her; but she was quite unpersuadable and this being the case, she had ere long the pleasure of seeing them set off together in high spirits. They were gone, she hoped, to be happy, however oddly constructed such happiness might seem; as for herself, she was left with as many sensations of comfort, as were, perhaps ever likely to be hers. She knew herself to be of the first utility to the child; and what was it to her, if Frederick Wentworth were only half a mile distant, making himself agreeable to others!"

"I pay very little regard to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person."

"The little Durands were there, I conclude," said she, "with their mouths open to catch the music; like unfledged sparrows ready to be fed. They never miss a concert."

"Her sensations on the discovery made her perfectly speechless. She could not even thank him. She could only hang over little Charles, with most disordered feelings. His kindness in stepping forward to her relief – the manner— the silence in which it had passed – the little particulars of the circumstance – with the conviction soon forced on her by the noise he was studiously making with the child, that he meant to avoid hearing her thanks, and rather sought to testify that her conversation was the last of his wants, produced such a confusion of varying, but very painful agitation, as she could not recover from, till enabled by the entrance of Mary and the Miss Musgroves to make over her little patience to their cares, and leave the room. She could not stay. It might have been an opportunity of watching the loves and jealousies of the four; they were now all together, but she could stay for none of it. It was evident that Charles Hayter was not well inclined towards Captain Wentworth. She had a strong impression of his having said, in a vext tone of voice, after Captain Wentworth’s interference, ‘You ought to have minded me, Walter; I told you not to teaze your aunt;’ and could comprehend his regretting that Captain Wentworth should do what he ought to have done himself. But neither Charles Hayter’s feelings, nor any body’s feelings, could interest her, till she had a little better arranged her own. She was ashamed of herself, quite ashamed of being so nervous, so overcome by such a trifle; but so it was; and it required a long application of solitude and reflection to recover her."

"Edward Ferrars was not recommended to their good opinion by any peculiar graces of person or address. He was not handsome, and his manners required intimacy to make them pleasing. He was too diffident to do justice to himself; but when his natural shyness was overcome, his behaviour gave every indication of an open, affectionate heart."

"one day in the country is exactly like another."

"in dawdling through the greenhouse, where the loss of her favorite plants, unwarily exposed, and nipped by the lingering frost, raised the laughter of Charlotte,-and in visiting her poultry-yard, where in the disappointed hopes of her dairymaid, by hens forsaking their nests, or being stolen by a fox, or in the rapid decease of a promising young brood, she found fresh sources of merriment."

"We neither of us perform to strangers."

"My Emma, does not every thing serve to prove more and more the beauty of truth and sincerity in all our dealings with each other?"

"What a blessing it is, when undue influence does not survive the grave!"

"convincing Elinor, that whatever other unpardonable folly might bring him to Cleveland, he was not brought there by intoxication."

"Elizabeth had never been more at a loss to make her feelings appear what they were not. It was necessary to laugh, when she would rather have cried."

"Elinor now found the difference between the expectation of an unpleasant event, however certain the mind may be told to consider it, and certainty itself. She now found that, in spite of herself, she had always admitted a hope, while Edward remained single, that something would occur to prevent his marrying Lucy; that some resolution of his own, some mediation of friends, or some more eligible opportunity of establishment for the lady, would arise to assist the happiness of all. But he was now married; and she condemned her heart for the lurking flattery which so much heightened the pain of the intelligence."

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

"But do not be cast down. Such squeamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity are not worth a regret"

"She had a lively, playful disposition that delighted in anything ridiculous."

"Certainly silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way."

"We do not look in great cities for our best morality."

"Men never know when things are dirty or not; women will have their little nonsenses and needless cares."

"Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly."

"He would look for her- he would find her out long before the evening were over- and at present, perhaps, it was as to be asunder. She was in need of a little interval for recollection."

"I should think he must be rather a dressy man for his time of life. Such a number of looking-glasses! Oh Lord! There is not getting away from one's self"

"His sisters were anxious for his having an estate of his own; but, though he was now only established as a tenant, Miss Bingley was by no means unwilling to preside at his table—nor was Mrs. Hurst, who had married"

"indirect speech and irony eventually made Austen one of the most influential and honored novelists in English Literature. Source: Wikipedia"

You have another long walk before you."

"She has many rare and charming qualities, but Sobriety is not one of them."

"Do not deceive yourself; do not be run away with by gratitude and compassion."

"Do you not want to know who has taken it?" cried his wife impatiently."

"But remember that the pain of parting from friends will be felt by everybody at times, whatever be their education or state. Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience; or give it a more fascinating name: call it hope."

"Where any one body of educated men, of whatever denomination, are condemned indiscriminately, there must be a deficiency of information, (or smiling) of something else."

"Maybe it’s that I find it hard to forgive the follies and vices of others, or their offenses against me. My good opinion, once lost, is lost forever."

"What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased. — Darcy"

"Anne could not immediately fall into a quotation again. The sweet scenes of autumn were for a while put by - unless some tender sonnet, fraught with the apt analogy of the declining year, with declining happiness, and the images of youth and hope, and spring, all gone together, blessed her memory."

"for I have often observed that resignation is never so perfect as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its value is our estimation."

"this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is"

"If gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Elizabeth's change of sentiment will be neither improbable nor faulty. But if otherwise--if regard springing from such sources is unreasonable or unnatural, in comparison of what is so often described as arising on a first interview with its object, and even before two words have been exchanged, nothing can be said in her defence, except that she had given somewhat of a trial to the latter method in her partiality for Wickham, and that its ill success might, perhaps, authorise her to seek the other less interesting mode of attachment."

"Her family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by the resurrection of Edward, she had one again."

"A general silence prevailed--A silence, which was by nothing interrupted but by the loud and repeated snores of one of the Party. "What an illiterate villian must that man be! (thought I to myself) What a total want of delicate refinement must he have, who can thus shock our senses by such a brutal noise! He must I am certain be capable of every bad action! There is no crime too black for such a Character!" Thus reasoned I within myself, and doubtless such were the reflections of my fellow travellers."

"Charles Adams was an amiable, accomplished & bewitching young Man; of so dazzling a Beauty that none but Eagles could look him in the Face."

"Elinor, I have been cruelly used; but not by Willoughby."

"Do come now," said he..., "pray come, you must come, I declare you shall come."

"If you will thank me '' he replied let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them I believe I thought only of you."

"Yes; these four evenings have enabled them to ascertain that they both like Vingt-un better than Commerce; but with respect to any other leading characteristic, I do not imagine that much has been unfolded."

"He listened to her with silent attention, and on her ceasing to speak, rose directly from his seat, and after saying in a voice of emotion, 'To your sister I wish all imaginable happiness; to Willoughby, that he may endeavor to deserve her,' took leave, and went away."

"You will think me rhapsodising; but when I am out of doors, especially when I am sitting out of doors, I am very apt to get into this sort of wandering strain. One cannot fix one's eyes on the commonest natural production without finding food for a rambling fancy."

"Oh! Miss Woodhouse, the comfort of being sometimes alone!"

"...by a young woman of inferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to the family!"

"Miss Darcy was tall and on a larger scale than Elizabeth and though little more than sixteen her figure was formed and her appearance womanly and graceful. She was less handsome than her brother but there was sense and good humour in her face and her manners were perfectly unassuming and gentle. Elizabeth who had expected to find in her as acute and unembarrassed an observer as ever Mr. Darcy had been was much relieved by discerning such different feelings."

"But," said I, "to be quite honest, I do not think I can live without something of a musical society. I condition for nothing else, but without music, life would be a blank to me."

"Her resentment of such behaviour, her indignation at having been its dupe, for a short time made her feel only for herself."

"Ah! what could we do but what we did! We sighed and fainted on the Sofa."

"Miss Bingley's congratulations to her brother, on his approaching marriage, were all that was affectionate and insincere."
"el esfuerzo debe ser proporcional a lo que se pretende."
"All the overpowering blinding, bewildering, first effects of strong surprise were over with her. Still, however, she had enough to feel! It was agitation, pain, pleasure, a something between delight and misery."

"If her case was pitiable, his was hopeless. His imprudence had made her miserable for a while; but it seemed to have deprived himself of all chance of ever being otherwise."

"She attracted him more than he liked."

"Pray, pray be composed, and do not betray what you feel to every body present"

"... and because they were fond of reading, she fancied them satirical: perhaps without exactly knowing what it was to be satirical; but that did not signify. It was censure in common use, and easily given."

"There is hardly any personal defect which an agreeable manner might not gradually reconcile one to."

"That will just do for me, you know. I shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth, shan't I?"

"The evil of the actual disparity in their ages (and Mr. Woodhouse had not married early) was much increased by his constitution and habits; for having been a valetudinarian all his life, without activity of mind or body, he was a much older man in ways than in years; and though everywhere beloved for the friendliness of his heart and his amiable temper, his talents could not have recommended him at any time."

"Encouraged by this to a further examination of his opinions, she proceeded to question him on the subject of books; her favourite authors were brought forward and dwelt upon with so rapturous a delight, that any young man of five-and-twenty must have been insensible indeed, not to become an immediate convert to the excellence of such works, however disregarded before. Their taste was strikingly alike. The same books, the same passages were idolized by each -- or, if any difference appeared, any objection arose, it lasted no longer than till the force of her arguments and the brightness of her eyes could be displayed. He acquiesced in all her decisions, caught all her enthusiasm, and long before his visit concluded, they conversed with the familiarity of a long-established acquaintance."

"You are a good girl, and I have great pleasure in thinking you will be so happily settled. I have no doubt of your doing very well together. Your tempers are by no means unlike. You are each of you so complying, that nothing will ever be resolved on; so easy, that every servant will cheat you; and so generous, that you will always exceed your income."

"They were rather handsome, had been educated in one of the first private seminaries in town,"

"There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost every attachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all BEGIN freely--a slight preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement. In nine cases out of ten a women had better show MORE affection than she feels. Bingley likes your sister undoubtedly; but he may never do more than like her, if she does not help him on."

"Believe me, I have no please in the world superior to that of contributing to yours. No, I can safely say, I have no pleasure so complete, so unalloyed. It is without a drawback. "

"Good God! Willloughby, what is the meaning of this?" -Marianne Dashwood"

"Good company requires only birth, manners and education and, with regard to education, I'm afraid it is not very particular"

"Sir Thomas saw repeated, and for ever repeated reason to rejoice in what he had done for them all, and acknowledge the advantages of early hardship and discipline, and the consciousness of being born to struggle and endure."

"He feared that principle, active principle, had been wanting; that they had never been properly taught to govern their inclinations and tempers by that sense of duty which can alone suffice. They had been instructed theoretically in their religion, but never required to bring it into daily practice."

"And Elinor, in quitting Norland and Edward, cried not as I did. Even now her self-command is invariable. When is she dejected or melancholy? When does she try to avoid society, or appear restless and dissatisfied in it?"

"Affectation of candour is common enough-one meets with it everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design—to take the good of everybody's character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad—belongs to you alone."

"The Longbourn party were the last of all the company to depart, and, by a manoeuvre of Mrs. Bennet, had to wait for their carriage a quarter of an hour after everybody else was gone, which gave them time to see how heartily they were wished away by some of the family. Mrs. Hurst and her sister scarcely opened their mouths, except to complain of fatigue, and were evidently impatient to have the house to themselves. They repulsed every attempt of Mrs. Bennet at conversation, and by so doing threw a languor over the whole party, which was very little relieved by the long speeches of Mr. Collins, who was complimenting Mr. Bingley and his sisters on the elegance of their entertainment, and the hospitality and politeness which had marked their behaviour to their guests. Darcy said nothing at all. Mr. Bennet, in equal silence, was enjoying the scene. Mr. Bingley and Jane were standing together, a little detached from the rest, and talked only to each other. Elizabeth preserved as steady a silence as either Mrs. Hurst or Miss Bingley; and even Lydia was too much fatigued to utter more than the occasional exclamation of "Lord, how tired I am!" accompanied by a violent yawn."

No! Thank you for thinking I am thoughtful."

"On every formal visit a child ought to be of the party, by way of provision for discourse."

"I do not find it easy to talk to people I don't know."

"A man who had felt less, might."

"Elizabeth received them with all the forbearance of civility"

"Mr. Darcy sends you all the love in the world that he can spare from me."

"I wish with all my soul his wife may plague his heart out."

"Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions. A large bulky figure has as good a right to be in deep affliction, as the most graceful set of limbs in the world."

"These are the sights, Harriet, to do one good. How trifling they make every thing else appear!---I feel now as if I could think of nothing but these poor creatures all the rest of the day; and yet, who can say how soon it may all vanish from my mind?"

"Mrs. Jennings wrote to tell the wonderful tale, to vent her honest indignation against the jilting girl, and pour forth her compassion towards poor Mr. Edward, who, she was sure, had quite doted upon the worthless hussy..."

"There is exquisite pleasure in subduing an insolent spirit, in making a person pre-determined to dislike, acknowledge one's superiority.
- Lady Susan"

"Mrs. Norris hitched a breath and went on again."

"If he had any compassion for me' cried her husband impatiently 'he would not have danced half so much! For God's sake, say no more of his partners. Oh! that he sprained his ankle in the first dance!"

"She was nothing more than a mere good-tempered, civil and obliging Young Woman; as such we could scarcely dislike her -- she was only an Object of Contempt"

"Elinor made no answer. Her thoughts were silently fixed on the irreparable injury which too early an independence and its consequent habits of idleness, dissipation, and luxury, had made in the mind, the character, the happiness, of a man who, to every advantage of person and talents, united a disposition naturally open and honest, and a feeling, affectionate temper. The world had made him extravagant and vain—Extravagance and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish. Vanity, while seeking its own guilty triumph at the expense of another, had involved him in a real attachment, which extravagance, or at least its offspring, necessity, had required to be sacrificed. Each faulty propensity in leading him to evil, had led him likewise to punishment. The attachment, from which against honour, against feeling, against every better interest he had outwardly torn himself, now, when no longer allowable, governed every thought; and the connection, for the sake of which he had, with little scruple, left her sister to misery, was likely to prove a source of unhappiness to himself of a far more incurable nature. From a reverie of this kind she was recalled at the end of some minutes by Willoughby, who, rousing himself from a reverie at least equally painful, started up in preparation for going, and said—"

"Where shall we see a better daughter, or a kinder sister, or a truer friend?"

"Mrs. Parker was as evidently a gentle, amiable, sweet-tempered woman, the properest wife in the world for a man of strong understanding but not of a capacity to supply the cooler reflection which her own husband sometimes needed; and so entirely waiting to be guided on every occasion that whether he was risking his fortune or spraining his ankle, she remained equally useless."

"Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain."

"They say that there are a prodigious number of birds hereabouts this year, so that perhaps I may kill a few."

"The contents of this letter threw Elizabeth into a flutter of spirits in which it was difficult to determine whether pleasure or pain bore the greatest share. The vague and unsettled suspicions which uncertainty had produced of what Mr. Darcy might have been doing to forward her sister's match which she had feared to encourage as an exertion of goodness too great to be probable and at the same time dreaded to be just from the pain of obligation were proved beyond their greatest extent to be true He had followed them purposely to town he had taken on himself all the trouble and mortification attendant on such a research in which supplication had been necessary to a woman whom he must abominate and despise and where he was reduced to meet frequently meet reason with persuade and finally bribe the man whom he always most wished to avoid and whose very name it was punishment to him to pronounce. He had done all this for a girl whom he could neither regard nor esteem. Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her. But it was a hope shortly checked by other considerations and she soon felt that even her vanity was insufficient when required to depend on his affection for her—for a woman who had already refused him—as able to overcome a sentiment so natural as abhorrence against relationship with Wickham. Brother-in-law of Wickham Every kind of pride must revolt from the connection. He had to be sure done much. She was ashamed to think how much. But he had given a reason for his interference which asked no extraordinary stretch of belief. It was reasonable that he should feel he had been wrong he had liberality and he had the means of exercising it and though she would not place herself as his principal inducement she could perhaps believe that remaining partiality for her might assist his endeavours in a cause where her peace of mind must be materially concerned. It was painful exceedingly painful to know that they were under obligations to a person who could never receive a return. They owed the restoration of Lydia her character every thing to him. Oh how heartily did she grieve over every ungracious sensation she had ever encouraged every saucy speech she had ever directed towards him. For herself she was humbled but she was proud of him. Proud that in a cause of compassion and honour he had been able to get the better of himself. She read over her aunt's commendation of him again and again. It was hardly enough but it pleased her. She was even sensible of some pleasure though mixed with regret on finding how steadfastly both she and her uncle had been persuaded that affection and confidence subsisted between Mr. Darcy and herself."

"women with gloves"

"No: the years which had destroyed her youth and bloom had only given him a more glowing, manly, open look, in no respect lessening his personal advantages. She had seen the same Frederick Wentworth."

"Catherine had never wanted comfort more, and [Henry] looked as if he was aware of it."

"[Henry] felt himself bound as much in honour as in affection to Miss Morland, and believing that heart to be his own which he had been directed to gain, no unworthy retraction of a tacit consent, no reversing feared of unjustifiable anger, could shake his fidelity, or influence the resolutions it prompted."

"A clergyman has nothing to do but be slovenly and selfish—read the newspaper, watch the weather, and quarrel with his wife. His curate does all the work, and the business of his own life is to dine.”

“There are such clergymen, no doubt, but I think they are not so common as to justify Miss Crawford in esteeming it their general character. I suspect that in this comprehensive and (may I say) commonplace censure, you are not judging from yourself, but from prejudiced persons, whose opinions you have been in the habit of hearing. It is impossible that your own observation can have given you much knowledge of the clergy. You can have been personally acquainted with very few of a set of men you condemn so conclusively. You are speaking what you have been told at your uncle’s table.”

“I speak what appears to me the general opinion; and where an opinion is general, it is usually correct. Though I have not seen much of the domestic lives of clergymen, it is seen by too many to leave any deficiency of information."

"Elinor saw, and pitied her for, the neglect of abilities which education might have rendered so respectable; but she saw, with less tenderness of feeling, the thorough want of delicacy, of rectitude, and integrity of mind, which her attentions, her assiduities, her flatteries at the Park betrayed; and she could have no lasting satisfaction in the company of a person who joined insincerity with ignorance; whose want of instruction prevented their meeting in conversation on terms of equality, and whose conduct toward others made every shew of attention and deference towards herself perfectly valueless."

"He may live in my memory as the most amiable man of my acquaintance.."

"Neither duty, nor honour, nor gratitude ... have any possible claim on me."


"He frequently observed, as he walked out, that one handsome face would be followed by thirty, or five-and-thirty frights; and once, as he stood in a shop in
Bond Street
, he had counted eighty-seven women go by, one after another, without there being a tolerable face among them."

"Where she feared most to fail, she was most sure of success, for those to whom she endeavored to give pleasure were prepossessed in her favor."

"If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember that it was to persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk. When I yielded, I thought it was to duty." (Anne to Captain Wentworth)"

"I do not know whether it ought to be so, but certain silly things cease to be silly if done by sensible people in an imprudent way."

"but a sanguine temper, though for ever expecting more good than occurs, does not always pay for its hopes by any proportionate depression. it soon flies over the present failure, and begins to hope again."


"but, had I a place to new fashion, I should not put myself into the hands of an improver. I would rather have an inferior degree of beauty, of my own choice, and acquired progressively. I would rather abide by my own blunders than by his."

"She considered that there were misfortunes of a much greater magnitude than the loss of a ball experienced every day by some part of mortality, and that the time might come when she would herself look back with wonder and perhaps envy on her having known no greater vexation."

"There was a strange rumor in Highbury of all the little Perrys being seen with a slice of Mrs. Weston's wedding-cake in their hands: but Mr. Woodhouse would never believe it."

"The conversation soon turned upon fishing, and she heard Mr. Darcy invite him, with the greatest civility, to fish there as often as he chose while he continued in the neighbourhood, offering at the same time to supply him with fishing tackle, and pointing out those parts of the stream where there was usually most sport. Mrs. Gardiner, who was walking arm in arm with Elizabeth, gave her a look expressive of her wonder. Elizabeth said nothing, but it gratified her exceedingly; the compliment must be all for herself. Her astonishment, however, was extreme; and continually was she repeating, "Why is he so altered? From what can it proceed? It cannot be for me, it cannot be for my sake that his manners are thus softened. My reproofs at Hunsford could not work such a change as this. It is impossible that he should still love me."

"He is blinded and nothing will open his eyes,nothing can,after having had truths so long before him in vain.--He will marry her and poor and miserable.God grant that her influence do not make him cease to be respectable!"---She looked over the letter again."So very fond of me!tis"nonsense all.She loves nobody but herself and her brother.Her friends leading her astray for years!She is quite as likely to have led them astray. They have all,perhaps, been corrupting one another;but if they are so much fonder of her than she is of them,she is the less likely to have been hurt except by their flattery.The only woman in the world,whom he could ever think of as a wife.....I firmly believe it.It is an attachment to govern his whole life. Accepted or refused,his heart is wedded to her for ever.The loss of Mary,I must consider as comprehending the loss of Crawford and Fanny.Edmund you do not know me.The families would never be connected,if you did not connected them.
Oh!write,write.Finish it at once.Let there be an end of this suspense.Fix, commit,condemn yourself."-Fanny Price"

"How eloquent could Anne Elliot have been, - how eloquent, at least, were her wishes on the side of early warm attachment, and a cheerful confidence in futurity, against that over-anxious caution which seems to insult exertion and distrust Providence! - She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older - the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning."

"I suppose you have heard of the handsome letter Mr. Frank Churchill had written to Mrs. Weston? I understand it was a very handsome letter, indeed. Mr. Woodhouse told me of it. Mr. Woodhouse saw the letter, and he says he never saw such a handsome letter in his life."

"I purposefully abstain from dates on this occasion,that very one may be liberty to fix their own,aware that the cure of unconquerable passions,and the transfer of unchanging attachments,must vary much as to time in different people.---I only entreat every body to believe that exactly at the time when it was quite natural that it should be so, and not a week earlier,Edmund did cease to care about Miss Crawford, and become anxious to marry Fanny,as Fanny herself could desire."

"When a woman has five grown-up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty."

"His reading has done him no harm, for he has fought as well as read."

"But I must object to your dooming Colonel Brandon and his wife to the constant confinement of a sick chamber, merely because he chanced to complain yesterday (a very cold damp day) of a slight rheumatic feel in one of his shoulders."

"But he talked of flannel waistcoats," said Marianne; "and with me a flannel waistcoat is invariably connected with the aches, cramps, rheumatisms, and every species of ailment that can afflict the old and the feeble."

"The enthusiasm of a woman's love is even beyond the biographer's."

"If you are not so compassionate as to dine to-day with Louisa and me, we shall be in danger of hating each other for the rest of our lives, for a whole day's tête-à-tête between two women can never end without a quarrel."

"Do not you feel a great inclination, Miss Bennet, to seize such an opportunity of dancing a reel?"
— Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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"Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply."

"its healing powers, on a disappointed heart"

"Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Eliot's character; vanity of person and of situation."

"Mr. Wickham was the happy man towards whom almost every female eye was turned, and Elizabeth was the happy woman by whom he finally seated himself"

"Are you consulting your own feelings in the present case, or do you imagine that you are gratifying mine?"

"Many were the tears shed by them in their last adieus to a place so much beloved. "Dear, dear Norland!" said Marianne, as she wandered alone before the house, on the last evening of their being there; "when shall I cease to regret you!—when learn to feel a home elsewhere!—Oh! happy house, could you know what I suffer in now viewing you from this spot, from whence perhaps I may view you no more!—And you, ye well-known trees!—but you will continue the same.—No leaf will decay because we are removed, nor any branch become motionless although we can observe you no longer!—No; you will continue the same; unconscious of the pleasure or the regret you occasion, and insensible of any change in those who walk under your shade!—But who will remain to enjoy you?"

"If there are young ladies in the world at her time of life more dull of fancy and more careless of pleasing, I know them not and never wish to know them."

"Far be it from me, my dear sister, to depreciate such pleasures. They would doubtless be congenial with the generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for me. I should infinitely prefer a book."

"I cannot say much for this Monarch's Sense--Nor would I if I could, for he was a Lancastrian. I suppose you know all about the Wars between him and the Duke of York who was on the right side; if you do not, you had better read some other History, for I shall not be very difuse in this, meaning by it only to vent my spleen against, and show my Hatred to all those people whose parties or principles do not suit with mine, and not to give information."

"May I ask you what these questions tend?'
'Merely to the illustration of your character,' said she, endeavouring to shake off her gravity. 'I am trying to make it out.'
'And what is your success?'
She shook her head. 'I do not get on at all. I hear such different accounts of you as puzzle me exceedingly."

"The difference in Miss Denham's countenance, the change from Miss Denham sitting in cold grandeur in Mrs. Parker's drawing room, to be kept from silence by the efforts of others, to Miss Denham at Lady Denham's elbow, listening and talking with smiling attention or solicitous eagerness, was very striking -- and very amusing or very melancholy, just as satire or morality might prevail."

"She regained the street--happy in this, that though much had been forced on her against her will, though she had in fact heard the whole substance of Jane Fairfax's letter, she had been able to escape the letter itself."
"O Sr. Bennet era um misto tão extraordinário de petulância, sarcasmo, reserva e capricho que a experiência de vinte e três anos não bastara ainda para a a mulher compreender o seu carácter. "

"I am afraid I interrupt your solitary ramble, my dear sister,' said he, as he joined her.
'You certainly do,' she replied with a smile; 'but it does not follow that the interruption must be unwelcome."
"Vaidade e orgulho são coisas diferentes, embora as palavras sejam frequentemente usadas como sinónimos. (...) O orgulho diz respeito mais à opinião que temos de nós próprios, enquanto a vaidade ao que pretendemos que os outros pensem de nós."

"Os meus sentimentos não se manifestam por dá cá aquela palha. O meu temperamento poderia talvez ser classificado de vingativo. A minha opinião, uma vez perdida, fica perdida para sempre."

"Prepare yourself for something dreadful."

"Mas o orgulho, onde quer que haja uma verdadeira superioridade intelectual, o orgulho estará sempre sob uma boa orientação."
"I saw you thro' a telescope and was so struck by your Charms that from that time to this I have not tasted human food."

"You want to tell me, and i have no objection to hearing it"

"Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it, that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week."

"Don't keep coughing so, Kitty, for Heaven's sake! Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces."

"Till now, I could not have supposed it possible to be mistaken as to a girl's being out or not. A girl not out, has always the same sort of dress: a close bonnet, for instance; looks very demure, and never says a word. You may smile, but it is so, I assure you; and except that it is sometimes carried a little too far, it is all very proper. Girls should be quiet and modest. The most objectionable part is, that the alteration of manners on being introduced into company is frequently too sudden. They sometimes pass in such very little time from reserve to quite the opposite - to confidence! That is the faulty part of the present system. "

"In that moment, as they stood smiling at one another, Charlotte was conscious of several contradictory sensations, of which the chief were these: annoyance with herself for being incapable of governing her own actions, satisfaction that Sidney had won this very minor victory over her, amusement, embarrassment - an odd something between perturbation and pleasure - and above all else, a flutter of joyful spirits which made her feel she had strayed somehow into a most unfamiliar world."

"Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness."

"and yet there is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions." (Colonel Brandon)"

"Let him have all the perfections in the world, I think it ought not be set down as certain that he must be acceptable to every women he may happen to like himself."

"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."

"Shall I ask you how the church is to be filled, if a man is neither to take orders with a living, nor without?"

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

"The promised notification was hanging over her head. The postman's knock within the neighbourhood was beginning to bring its daily terrors -and if reading could banish the idea for even half an hour, it was something gained."

"Never did I see such an affecting Scene as was the meeting of Edward and Augustus.

'My Life! my Soul!' (exclaimed the former). 'My Adorable Angel!' (replied the latter) as they flew into each other's arms. It was too pathetic for the feelings of Sophia and myself -- We fainted alternately on a sofa."

"Every body has their taste in noises as well as other matters; and sounds are quite innoxious, or most distressing, by their sort rather than their quantity."

"General benevolence, but not general friendship, make a man what he ought to be."

"Pride," observed Mary, who piqued herself upon the solidity of her reflections, "is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it it very common indeed; that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or the other, real or imaginary. 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 other think of us."

"I wish we had a donkey. The thing would be for us all to come on donkeys, Jane, Miss Bates, and me--and my caro sposo walking by. I really must talk to him about purchasing a donkey. In a country life I conceive it to be a sort of necessary; for, let a woman have ever so many resources, it is not possible for her to be always shut up at home;--and very long walks, you know--in summer there is dust, and in winter there is dirt."

"Perfection should not have come quite so soon."

"Who can endure a Cabbage Bed in October? - 'Sanditon"

"Aye, a very bad business indeed. A new sort of way this, for a young fellow to be making love, by breaking his mistress's head, is not it, Miss Elliot? This is breaking a head and giving a plaister truly!"

"Well, here we are at the passage. Two steps, Jane, take care of the two steps. Oh! no, there is but one. Well, I was persuaded there were two. How very odd! I was convinced there were two, and there is but one."

"How ill I have written. I begin to hate myself."

"for everybody must now 'move in a circle', - to the prevalence of which rotatory motion, is perhaps to be attributed the giddiness and false steps of many."

"It may be easily believed that however little of novelty could be added to their fears hopes and conjectures on this interesting subject by its repeated discussion no other could detain them from it long during the whole of the journey. From Elizabeth's thoughts it was never absent. Fixed there by the keenest of all anguish self-reproach she could find no interval of ease or forgetfulness."


"While we were together, you know, there was nothing to be feared...The only time that I ever really suffered in body or mid, the only time that I ever fancied myself unwell, or had any ideas of danger, was the winter that I passed by myself at Deal, when the Admiral (Captain Croft then) was in the North Seas. I lived in perpetual fright at that time, and had all manner of imaginary complaints from not knowing what to do with myself, or when I should hear from him next; but as long as we could be together, nothing ever ailed me, and I never met with the smallest inconvenience."

"With the Gardiners, they were always on the most intimate terms. Darcy, as well as Elizabeth, really loved them; and they were both ever sensible of the warmest gratitude towards the persons who, by bringing her into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them."

"And now I may dismiss my heroine to the sleepless couch, which is the true heroine's portion - to a pillow strewed with thorns and wet with tears. And lucky may she think herself, if she get another good night's rest in the course of the next three months."

"Mr. Rushworh was very ready to request the favour of Mr. Crawford's assistance; and Mr. Crawford after properly depreciating his own abilities, was quite at his service in any way that could be useful."

"I am really not tired, which I almost wonder at; for we must have walked at least a mile in this wood. Do not you think we have? '
'Not half a mile,' was his sturdy answer; for he was not yet so much in love as to measure distance, or reckon time, with feminine lawlessness."

"Where people are really attached, poverty itself is wealth."

"This was a letter to be run through eagerly, to be read deliberately, to supply matter for much reflection, and to leave everything in greater suspense than ever."

"Louisa seemed the principal arranger of the plan; and, as she went a little way with them, down the hill, still talking to Henrietta, Mary took the opportunity of looking scornfully around her, and saying to Captain Wentworth,
‘It is very unpleasant, having such connexions! But I assure you, I have never been in the house above twice in my life.’
She received no answer, other than an artificial, assenting smile, followed by a contemptuous glance, as he turned away, which Anne perfectly knew the meaning of."

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid. I have read all Mrs. Radcliffe's works, and most of them with great pleasure. The Mysteries of Udolpho, when I had once begun it, I could not lay down again; I remember finishing it in two days—my hair standing on end the whole time."

"Yes," added Miss Tilney, "and I remember that you undertook to read it aloud to me, and that when I was called away for only five minutes to answer a note, instead of waiting for me, you took the volume into the Hermitage Walk, and I was obliged to stay till you had finished it."

"Thank you, Eleanor—a most honourable testimony. You see, Miss Morland, the injustice of your suspicions. Here was I, in my eagerness to get on, refusing to wait only five minutes for my sister, breaking the promise I had made of reading it aloud, and keeping her in suspense at a most interesting part, by running away with the volume, which, you are to observe, was her own, particularly her own. I am proud when I reflect on it, and I think it must establish me in your good opinion."

"...that the Musgroves had had the ill fortune of a very troublesome, hopeless son; and the good fortune to lose him before he reached his twentieth year; that he had been sent to sea, because he was stupid and unmanageable on shore; that he had been very little cared for at any time by his family, though quite as much as he deserved; seldom heard of, and scarcely at all regretted... He had, in fact, though his sisters were now doing all they could for him, by calling him 'poor Richard,' been nothing better than a thick-headed, unfeeling, unprofitable Dick Musgrove, who had never done anything to entitle himself to more than the abbreviation of his name, living or dead."

"Not very good, I am afraid. But now really, do not you think Udolpho the nicest book in the world?"

"The nicest—by which I suppose you mean the neatest. That must depend upon the binding."

"If I am a wild Beast I cannot help it. It is not my own fault."

"I am sure," cried Catherine, "I did not mean to say anything wrong; but it is a nice book, and why should not I call it so?"

"Very true," said Henry, "and this is a very nice day, and we are taking a very nice walk, and you are two very nice young ladies. Oh! It is a very nice word indeed! It does for everything. Originally perhaps it was applied only to express neatness, propriety, delicacy, or refinement—people were nice in their dress, in their sentiments, or their choice. But now every commendation on every subject is comprised in that one word."

"And now, Henry," said Miss Tilney, "that you have made us understand each other, you may as well make Miss Morland understand yourself—unless you mean to have her think you intolerably rude to your sister, and a great brute in your opinion of women in general. Miss Morland is not used to your odd ways."

"I shall be most happy to make her better acquainted with them."

"No doubt; but that is no explanation of the present."

"What am I to do?"

"You know what you ought to do. Clear your character handsomely before her. Tell her that you think very highly of the understanding of women."

"Miss Morland, I think very highly of the understanding of all the women in the world—especially of those—whoever they may be—with whom I happen to be in company."

"That is not enough. Be more serious."

"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."

"What praise is more valuable than the praise of an intelligent servant?"

"By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased."

"Luck which so often defies anticipation in matrimonial affairs, giving attraction to what is moderate rather than to what is superior."

"She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me; I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me."

"Where the waters do agree, it is quite wonderful the relief they give."

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

"Happiness must preclude false indulgence and physic."

"I've been used to consider poetry as the food of love " Mr.Darcy
Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away." Elizza"

"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 actually pass under ones own observation; and as for the little embellishments you speak of, they are embellishments, and I like them as such."

"Success supposes endeavor"

"Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody not greatly in fault themselves to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest."

"It was impossible to quarrel with words, whose tremulous inequality showed indisposition so plainly."

"Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans."

"The notions of a young man of one or two and twenty,' said he, 'as to what is necessary in manners to make him quite the thing, are more absurd, I believe, than those of any other set of beings in the world. The folly of the means they often employ is only to be equalled by the folly of what they have in view."

"whenever you are transplanted, like me, Miss Woodhouse, you will understand how very delightful it is to meet with anything at all like what one has left behind. I always say this is quite one of the evils of matrimony."
 
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