Jane Austen Quotes - Page 38 | Just Great DataBase

Lady Middleton resigned herself... Contenting herself with merely giving her husband a gentle reprimand on the subject, five or six times every day.

I will not allow books to prove anything.

It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before; and, generally speaking, if there has been neither ill health nor anxiety, it is a time of life at which scarcely any charm is lost.

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.

...joy, senseless joy!

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.

But now you love a hyacinth. So much the better. You have gained a new source of enjoyment, and it is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible.

[Henry] felt himself bound as much in honour as in affection to Miss Morland, and believing that heart to be his own which he had been directed to gain, no unworthy retraction of a tacit consent, no reversing feared of unjustifiable anger, could shake his fidelity, or influence the resolutions it prompted.

The most charming young man in the world is instantly before the imagination of us all.

Her passion for ancient edifices was next in degree to her passion for Henry Tilney-- and castles and abbeys made usually the charm of those reveries which his image did not fill.

one day in the country is exactly like another.

Where the heart is really attached, I know very well how little one can be pleased with the attention of any body else. Everything is so insipid, so uninteresting, that does not relate to the beloved object!

Mrs. Norris hitched a breath and went on again.

If I am missed it will appear. I may be discovered by those who want to see me. I shall not be in any doubtful, or distant, or unapproachable region.

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.

Without any display of doing more than the rest, or any fear of doing too much, he was always true to her interests and considerate of her feelings, trying to make her good qualities understood, and to conquer the diffidence which prevented them from being more apparent; giving her advice, consolation, and encouragement.

I cannot think well of a man who sports with any woman's feelings; and there may often be a great deal more suffered than a stander-by can judge.

This was a letter to be run through eagerly, to be read deliberately, to supply matter for much reflection, and to leave everything in greater suspense than ever.

Not even Fanny had tears for aunt Norris, not even when she was gone for ever.

Emma laughed, and replied: "But I had the assistance of all your endeavours to counteract the indulgence of other people. I doubt whether my own sense would have corrected me without it.""Do you?—I have no doubt. Nature gave you understanding:—Miss Taylor gave you principles. You must have done well. My interference was quite as likely to do harm as good. It was very natural for you to say, what right has he to lecture me?—and I am afraid very natural for you to feel that it was done in a disagreeable manner. I do not believe I did you any good. The good was all to myself, by making you an object of the tenderest affection to me. I could not think about you so much without doating on you, faults and all; and by dint of fancying so many errors, have been in love with you ever since you were thirteen at least. [...] "How often, when you were a girl, have you said to me, with one of your saucy looks—'Mr. Knightley, I am going to do so-and-so; papa says I may, or I have Miss Taylor's leave'—something which, you knew, I did not approve. In such cases my interference was giving you two bad feelings instead of one.""What an amiable creature I was!—No wonder you should hold my speeches in such affectionate remembrance.