I am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.
Jane Austen

I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.
Jane Austen

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

I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.
Jane Austen

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

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

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

It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage.
Jane Austen

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?
Jane Austen

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

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

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.
Jane Austen

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.
Jane Austen

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.
Jane Austen

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.
Jane Austen

My sore throats are always worse than anyone's.
Jane Austen

Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then.
Jane Austen

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.
Jane Austen

Nobody minds having what is too good for them.
Jane Austen

Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.
Jane Austen