One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.

…for I look upon the Frasers to be about as unhappy as most other married people.

Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable […]. Does our education prepare us...

…for what after all is Youth and Beauty?

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; and it must be by a...

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...

He had suffered, and he had learnt to think, two advantages that he had never known before…

If I could not be persuaded into doing what I thought wrong, I will never be tricked into it.

A distinction to which they had been born gave no pride.

A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.

It was a very proper wedding. The bride was elegantly dressed—the two bridemaids were duly inferior—her father gave her away—her mother stood with salts in her hand expecting to be agitated—her aunt tried to cry—...

What Wickham had said of the living was fresh in her memory, and as she recalled his very words, it was impossible not to feel that there was gross duplicity on one side or the...

I think it was very impertinent of him to write to you at all, and very hypocritical. I hate such false friends. Why could not he keep on quarrelling with you, as his father did...

A basin of nice smooth gruel, thin, but not too thin.

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.

The loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable – that one false step involves in her endless ruin – that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful – and that she...

No one can withstand the charm of such a mystery.

It was rather too late in the day to set about being simple-minded and ignorant.

If I could but know his heart, everything would become easy.

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?

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...

She had been a friend and companion such as few possessed: intelligent, well-informed, useful, gentle, knowing all the ways of the family, interested in all its concerns, and peculiarly interested in herself, in every pleasure,...

Fanny spoke her feelings. “Here’s harmony!” said she; “here’s repose! Here’s what may leave all painting and all music behind, and what may tranquillise every care, and lift the heart to rapture! When I look...

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...

Sophia shrieked and fainted on the ground – I screamed and instantly ran mad. We remained thus mutually deprived of our senses, some minutes, and on regaining them were deprived of them again. For an...

She will never submit to any thing requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of the fancy to the understanding.

We must consider what Miss. Fairfax quits, before we condemn her taste for what she goes to.

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...

An artist cannot do anything slovenly.

I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me that trouble of liking them.

It is only poverty that makes celibacy contemptible. A single woman of good fortune is always respectable.

If it was not for the entail I should not mind it.’ `What should not you mind?’ `I should not mind anything at all.’ `Let us be thankful that you are preserved from a state...

And she did what nobody thought of doing… she consulted Anne.

I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him.

It is a most repulsive quality, indeed,’ said he. ‘Oftentimes very convenient, no doubt, but never pleasing. There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.’‘Not till the reserve ceases...

Das Vorrecht, das ich für mein Geschlecht beanspruche und das durchaus nicht so beneidenswert ist, dass Sie danach trachten müssten, besteht nur darin, dass unsere Liebe nimmer aufhört, auch wenn Leben und Hoffnung dahin sind.

To wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect

Why not seize the pleasure at once? — How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!

Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it...

… 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...

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.

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.

You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.

I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yielding— certainly too little for the convenience of the world....

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.

General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be.

One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering.

There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is...

speaks very truthfully. … I loved the fact that it felt so honest. I respond to scripts regardless of where or when they’re set; for me, it’s about whether the characters ring true.

I have heard that something very shocking indeed will soon come out in London.