1,664 Quotes by Jane Austen

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

It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before.

there is not one in a hundred of either sex, who is not taken in when they marry. ... it is, of all transactions, the one in which people expect most from others, and are least honest themselves.

I would have everybody marry if they can do it properly: I do not like to have people throw themselves away; but everybody should marry as soon as they can do it to advantage.

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

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

Nobody minds having what is too good for them.

Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain.

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