1,664 Quotes by Jane Austen

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

If there is anything disagreeable going on men are always sure to get out of it

From politics it was an easy step to silence.

I am not one of those who neglect the reigning power to bow to the rising sun

How pleasant it is to spend an evening in this way! 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.

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

The gentleness, modesty, and sweetness of her character were warmly expatiated on; that sweetness which makes so essential a part of every woman's worth in the judgment of man, that though he sometimes loves where it is not, he can never believe it absent.

I could not sit down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life.

The little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labour.