1,664 Quotes by Jane Austen

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.

There is not the hundredth part of the wine consumed in this kingdom that there ought to be. Our foggy climate wants help.

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

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

Too many cooks spoil the broth

I do not cough for my own amusement.

A sick child is always the mother's property; her own feelings generally make it so.

Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions. A large bulky figure has a good a right to be in deep affliction, as the most graceful set of limbs in the world. But, fair or not fair, there are unbecoming conjunctions, which reason will pa tronize in vain,--which taste cannot tolerate,--which ridicule will seize.

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