Quotes by Jane Austen

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.

Nobody minds having what is too good for them.

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.

From politics, it was an easy step to silence.

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.

Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a something of shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the latter.

“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 explain.”

“Every moment has its pleasures and its hope.”

“Time did not compose her.”

“Time will generally lessen the interest of every attachment not within the daily circle.”

“These were reflections that required some time to soften; but time will do almost every thing…”

“Tempo ou oportunidade não determinam a intimidade, apenas a disposição.”