For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn? – Jane Austen
To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment. – Jane Austen
The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid. – Jane Austen
Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor. Which is one very strong argument in favor of matrimony. – Jane Austen
Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be. – Jane Austen
Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable. – 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
Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of. – Jane Austen
We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be. – Jane Austen
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. – 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
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. – Jane Austen
A single woman with a very narrow income must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid – the proper sport of boys and girls; but a single woman of good fortune is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as anybody else. – Jane Austen
A man would always wish to give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from; and he who can do it, where there is no doubt of her regard, must, I think, be the happiest of mortals. – 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
The power of doing anything with quickness is always prized much by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. – Jane Austen
