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.
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.
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!
I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.
If I could but know his heart, everything would become easy.
There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison
Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection.
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.
Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.
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.
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.
Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death.
Elizabeth’s spirit’s soon rising to playfulness again, she wanted Mr. Darcy to account for his having ever fallen in love with her. ‘How could you begin?’ said she. begun.
Is not general incivility the very essence of love?
One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.
How quick come the reasons for approving what we like.
…when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.
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.
And to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.
The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.
I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.
Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.
Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing after all.
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?
Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride – where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation.
And pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked.
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…
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
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.
Every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required.
But to live in ignorance on such a point was impossible.
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?
It does not come to me in quite so direct a line as that; it takes a bend or two, but nothing of consequence. The stream is as good as at first; the little rubbish it collects in the turnings is easily moved away.
Words were insufficient for the elevation of his [Mr Collins’] feelings; and he was obliged to walk about the room, while Elizabeth tried to unite civility and truth in a few short sentences.
…one half of her should not be always so much wiser than the other half…
Biti dobro upućen u stvari znači lišiti druge mogućnosti da udovolje svojoj taštini, što će pametan čovek uvek nastojati da izbegne.
Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your happiness.”~ Jane Austen (Pride & Prejudice)
I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.
I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh.
A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.
Why not seize the pleasure at once? — How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!
[I]t is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible.
He will make you happy, Fanny; I know he will make you happy; but you will make him everything.
She was happy, she knew she was happy, and knew she ought to be happy.
How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!
…she had nothing to do but to forgive herself and be happier than ever…
But there was happiness elsewhere which no description can reach.
Happiness must preclude false indulgence and physic.
But to appear happy when I am so miserable — Oh! who can require it?
I will not talk of my own happiness,’ said he, ‘great as it is, for I think only of yours. Compared with you, who has the right to be happy?
I was uncomfortable enough. I was very uncomfortable, I may say unhappy.
Yet some happiness must and would arise, from the very conviction, that he did suffer.
She had received ideas which disposed her to be courteous and kind to all, and to pity every one, as being less happy than herself.
…for I look upon the Frasers to be about as unhappy as most other married people.
The Very first moment I beheld him, my heart was irrevocably gone.
We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him.
She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.
Have you any other objection than your belief of my indifference?”- Elizabeth Bennet
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.
I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love.
I can feel no sentiment of approbation inferior to love.
Te aseguro que no soy de las que quieren a medias. Mis sentimientos siempre son profundos y arraigados”…
It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy. I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples.
All the privilege I claim for my own sex, is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.
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.
…told herself likewise not to hope. But it was too late. Hope had already entered…
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 have been used to consider poetry as the food of love
[I]f a book is well written, I always find it too short.
A woman, especially if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.
Facts or opinions which are to pass through the hands of so many, to be misconceived by folly in one, and ignorance in another, can hardly have much truth left.
Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody.
There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those two young men. One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it.
A fondness for reading, properly directed, must be an education in itself.
My idea of good company, Mr. Eliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.
She looked back as well as she could; but it was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she supposed and made everything bend to it.
It is singularity which often makes the worst part of our suffering, as it always does of our conduct.
We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be
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.
Time will generally lessen the interest of every attachment not within the daily circle.
I frequently observe that one pretty face would be followed by five and thirty frights.
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.
but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.
If a book is well written, I always find it too short.
How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book!
Books–oh! no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with the samefeelings.””I am sorry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at least beno want of subject. We may compare our different opinions.
…I will not allow books to prove any thing.””But how shall we prove any thing?””We never shall.
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.
And Marianne, who had the knack of finding her way in every house to the library, however it might be avoided by the family in general, soon procured herself a book.
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.
Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first?
Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does.
Elizabeth could never address her without feeling that all the comfort of intimacy was over, and, though determined not to slacken as a correspondent, it was for the sake of what had been, rather than what was.
But one never does form a just idea of anybody beforehand. One takes up a notion and runs away with it.
It was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now.
Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.
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
… 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.
For my part, I am determined never to speak of it again to anybody. I told my sister Phillips so the other day.
I have not yet tranquillised myself enough to see Frederica.
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.
She was sensible and clever, but eager in everything; her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation.
You men have none of you any hearts.”If we have not hearts, we have eyes; and they give us torment enough.
… a whole day’s tête-à-tête between two women can never end without a quarrel.
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.
…And if reading could banish the idea for even half an hour, it was something gained.
Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.
Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.
To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.
I am worn out with civility. I have been talking incessantly all night, and with nothing to say. But with you there may be peace. You will not want to be talked to. Let us have the luxury of silence.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
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.
The most incomprehensible thing in the world to a man, is a woman who rejects his offer of marriage!
I pay very little regard,” said Mrs. Grant, “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.
Miss Bingley’s congratulations to her brother, on his approaching marriage, were all that was affectionate and insincere.
Luck which so often defies anticipation in matrimonial affairs, giving attraction to what is moderate rather than to what is superior.
With such a worshipping wife, it was hardly possible that any natural defects in it should not be increased. The extreme sweetness of her temper must hurt his.
Here are officers enough in Meryton to disappoint all the young ladies in the country.
I am not only not going to be married, at present, but have very little intention of ever marrying at all.
I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look will be enough to decide whether I enter your father’s house tonight or never.
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.
Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.
A lady, without a family, was the very best preserver of furniture in the world.
…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.
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.
So long divided and so differently situated, the ties of blood were little more than nothing.
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.
Blessed with so many resources within myself the world was not necessary to me. I could do very well without it.
I have not known him long indeed, but I am much better acquainted with him than I am with any other creature in the world.
Esteem him! Like him! Cold-hearted Elinor! Oh! worse than cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise. Use those words again, and I will leave the room this moment.
I feel as if I could be any thing or every thing, as if I could rant and storm, or sigh, or cut capers in any tragedy or comedy in the English language.
I shall ever despise the man who can be gratified by the passion which he never wished to inspire, nor solicited the avowal of.
I do not know where the error lies. I do not pretend to set people right, but I do see they are often wrong.
What had she have to wish for? Nothing but to grow more worthy of him whose intentions and judgment had been ever so superior to her own.
What had she to wish for? Nothing, but to grow more worthy of him whose intentions and judgment had been ever so superior to her own.
Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in theirpower, which no subsequent connections can supply..
He is a gentleman, and I am a gentleman’s daughter. So far we are equal.
Ever since her being turned into a Churchill, she has out-Churchill’d them all in high and mighty claims.
It is a difference of opinion which does not admit of proof. We each begin probably with a little bias towards our own sex, and upon that bias build every circumstance in favour of it which has occurred within our own circle;
I do not play this instrument so well as I should wish to, but I have always supposed that to be my own fault because I would not take the trouble of practicing.
The past, present, and future, were all equally in gloom.
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 could not be happy with a man whose taste did not in every point coincide with my own. He must enter in all my feelings; the same books, the same music must charm us both.
There are people who, the more you do for them, the less they will do for themseselves.
…she felt depressed beyond any thing she had ever known before.
In such moments of precious, invaluable misery, she rejoiced in tears of agony…
If, however, I am allowed to think that you and yours feel an interest in my fate and actions, it may be the means—it may put me on my guard—at least, it may be something to live for.
An interval of meditation, serious and grateful, was the best corrective of everything dangerous.
Trusting that you will some time or other do me greater justice than you can do now.
I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.
His departure gave Catherine the first experimental conviction that a loss may be sometimes a gain.
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.
Mr. Knightley to be no longer coming there for his evening comfort! – No longer walking in at all hours, as if ever willing to change his own home for their’s! – How was it to be endured?
We must not be so ready to fancy ourselves intentionally injured… It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us.
Mr. ***** is blessed with such happy manners as may ensure his making friends — whether he may be equally capable of retaining them, is less certain.
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
They all went indoors with their new friends, and found rooms so small as none but those who invite from the heart could think capable of accommodating so many.
Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are men to rocks and mountains?
I assure you. I have no notion of treating men with such respect. That is the way to spoil them.
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.
Poverty is a great evil, but to a woman of education and feeling it ought not, it cannot be the greatest.—I would rather be a teacher at a school (and I can think of nothing worse) than marry a man I did not like.
He then departed, to make himself still more interesting, in the midst of an heavy rain.
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.
Where people are really attached, poverty itself is wealth.
If this man had not twelve thousand a year, he would be a very stupid fellow.
You are very fond of bending little minds; but where little minds belong to rich people in authority, I think they have a knack of swelling out, till they are quite as unmanageable as great ones.
Elinor had some difficulty here to refrain from observing, that she thought Fanny might have borne with composure, an acquisition of wealth to her brother, by which neither she nor her child could be possibly impoverished.
Marianne could never love by halves; and her whole heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband, as it had once been to Willoughby.
You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.
In books too, as well as in music, she courted the misery which a contrast between the past and present was certain of giving.
Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied.
He had suffered, and he had learnt to think, two advantages that he had never known before…
It would be most right, and most wise, and, therefore must involve least suffering.
If I could not be persuaded into doing what I thought wrong, I will never be tricked into it.
I have changed my mind, and changed the trimmings of my cap this morning; they are now such as you suggested.
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.
I am no indiscriminate novel reader. The mere trash of the common circulating library I hold in the highest contempt.
You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to fall into it!
She will never submit to any thing requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of the fancy to the understanding.
It was impossible to quarrel with words, whose tremulous inequality showed indisposition so plainly.
I cannot, I cannot,’ cried Marianne; ‘leave me, leave me, if I distress you; leave me, hate me, forget me! But do not torture me so. Oh! how easy for those who have no sorrow of their own to talk of extertion!
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.
Her feelings were very acute, and too little understood to be properly attended to. Nobody meant to be unkind, but nobody put themselves out of their way to secure her comfort.
Alas! with all her reasoning, she found, that to retentive feelings eight years may be little more than nothing.
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.
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.
But remember that the pain of parting from friends will be felt by every body at times, whatever be their education or state.
Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.
Much was said, and much was ate, and all went well.
She was of course only too good for him; but as nobody minds having what is too good for them, he was very steadily earnest in the pursuit of the blessing, and it was not possible that encouragement from her should be long wanting.
I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment
Eleanor went to her room “where she was free to think and be wretched.
…Elinor was then at liberty to think and be wretched.
But I will not repine. It cannot last long. He will be forgot, and we shall all be as we were before.
She felt the loss of Willoughby’s character yet more heavily than she had felt the loss of his heart.
He had just compunction enough for having done nothing for his sisters himself, to be exceedingly anxious that everybody else should do a great deal.
We must consider what Miss. Fairfax quits, before we condemn her taste for what she goes to.
Oh! what a silly Thing is Woman! How vain, how unreasonable!
The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in reading a good novel, must be incredibly stupid
Nothing is more deceitful,” said Darcy, “than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.
By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You shewed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.
Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion and somethings an indirect boast.
the rent here may be low but i believe we have it on very hard terms –sense & sensibility
I should wish to see them very good friends, and would, on no account, authorize in my girls the smallest degree of arrogance towards their relations; but still they cannot be equals.” (10)
…the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.
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.
It was gratitude; gratitude, not merelyfor having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him.
Nothing was so likely to do her good as a little quiet cheerfulness at home.
He paid her only the compliment of attention; and she felt a respect for him on the occasion, which the others had reasonably forfeited by their shameless want of taste.
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.
Pride has often been his best friend. It has connected him nearer with virtue than any other feeling.
Completely and perfectly and incandescently happy…
A distinction to which they had been born gave no pride.
Whenever you are transplanted, like me, you will understand how very delightful it is to meet with anything at all like what one has left behind.
I do not wish to avoid the walk. The distance is nothing when one has a motive.
You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope…I have loved none but you.
The I examined my own heart. And there you were. Never, I fear, to be removed.
Upon my word, Emma, to hear you abusing the reason you have, is almost enough to make me think so too. Better be without sense than misapply it as you do.
Mr. Collins was to attend them, at the request of Mr. Bennet, who was most anxious to get rid of him, and have his library to himself
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
If I am wrong, I am doing what I believe to the right.
… his second… must give him the pleasantest proof of its being a great deal better to choose than to be chosen, to excite gratitude than to feel it.
To avoid a comparative poverty, which her affection and her society would have deprived of all its horrors, I have, by raising myself to affluence, lost everything that could make it a blessing.
When once we are buried you think we are gone. But behold me immortal!
The older a person grows, Harriet, the more important it is that their manners should not be bad; the more glaring and disgusting any loudness, or coarseness, or awkwardness becomes. What is passable in youth is detestable in later age.
I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.
I admire all my three sons-in-law highly. Wickham, perhaps is my favourite; but I think I shall like your husband quite as well as Jane’s.
Provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she had never any objection to books at all.
Poor woman! She probably thought change of air might agree with many of her children.
That will do extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let the other young ladies have time to exhibit.
How unfortunate, considering I have decided to loathe him for eternity
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.
They were rather handsome, had been educated in one of the first private seminaries in town,
Goldsmith tells us, that when lovely woman stoops to folly, she has nothing to do but to die; and when she stoops to be disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill-fame.
Sometime the worst type of weapon in the world is love.
…for to be sunk, though but for an hour in your esteem is a humiliation to which I know not how to submit. -Susan
Reflection must be reserved for solitary hours; whenever she was alone, she gave way to it as the greatest relief; and not a day went by without a solitary walk, in which she might indulge in all the delight of unpleasant recollections.
Catherine had never wanted comfort more, and [Henry] looked as if he was aware of it.
Where the waters do agree, it is quite wonderful the relief they give.
I do not know where the error lies. I do not pretend to set people right, but I do see that they are often wrong.
A very narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper. Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small, and generally very inferior, society, may well be illiberal and cross.
Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge.
I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these.”- Mr. Darcy
Marianne, who had the knack of finding her way in every house to the library, however it might be avoided by the family in general, soon procured herself a book.
She had nothing to wish otherwise, but that the days did not pass so swiftly. It was a delightful visit;—perfect, in being much too short.
Where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given.
From a night of more sleep than she had expected, Marianne awoke the next morning to the same consciousness of misery in which she had closed her eyes.
There had been moments when she felt he had almost forgiven her. She would always remember those moments.
And this,” cried Darcy, as he walked with quick steps across the room, “is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully.
Till it does come, you know, we women never mean to have anybody. It is a thing of course among us, that every man is refused, till he offers.
There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil – a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.
sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in but what was worn and hackneyed out of all sense and meaning
Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge
Shyness is only the effect of a sense of inferiority in some way or other. If I could persuade myself that my manners were perfectly easy and graceful, I should not be shy
Marianne was silent; it was impossible for her to say what she did not feel, however trivial the occasion…
What praise is more valuable than the praise of an intelligent servant?
There is a monsterous deal of stupid quizzing, & common-place nonsense talked, but scarcely any wit.
This was a lucky recollection — it saved her from something like regret.
He listened to her with perfect indifference while she chose to entertain herself in this manner; and as his composure convinced her that all was safe, her wit flowed long.
It was rather too late in the day to set about being simple-minded and ignorant.
Well, well,” said he, “do not make yourself unhappy. If you are a good girl for the next ten years, I will take you to a review at the end of them.
You judge very properly, 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?
You will find her manners beyond anything I can describe; and your wit and vivacity, I think, must be acceptable to her, especially when tempered with the silence and respect which her rank will inevitably excite.
How unlucky that you should have a reasonable answer to give, and that I should be so reasonable as to admit it!
Upon my word, you five your opinion very decidedly for so young a person.
And she did what nobody thought of doing… she consulted Anne.
In his library he had been always sure of leisure and tranquility; and though prepared, as he told Elizabeth, to meet with folly and conceit in every other room in the house, he was used to be free from them there
Everybody’s heart is open you know when they have recently escaped from severe pain or are recovering the blessing of health.
Where an opinion is general it is usually correct.
There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.
Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.
Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed by preparation foolish preparation?
That sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
A person who can write a long letter with ease cannot write ill.
Grant us grace Almighty Father so to pray as to deserve to be heard.
I have been a selfish being all my life in practice though not in principle.
Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed by preparation foolish preparation!
We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.
Let him have all the perfections in the world, I think it ought not to be set down as certain that a man must be acceptable to every woman he may happen to like himself.
Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of the mouths of other people.
Business, you know, may bring you money, but friendship hardly ever does.
Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.
Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.
To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.
They are much to be pitied who have not been given a taste for nature early in life.
Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.
Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor. Which is one very strong argument in favor of matrimony.
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 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.
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.
It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage.
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.
General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be.
Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody.
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.
There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.