Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in...

The Very first moment I beheld him, my heart was irrevocably gone.

Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first?

I cannot say much for this Monarch’s Sense–Nor would I if I could, for he was a Lancastrian. I suppose you know all about the Wars between him and the Duke of York who was...

And here is my sweet little Annamaria,’ she added, tenderly caressing a little girl of three years old, who had not made a noise for the last two minutes; ‘And she is always so gentle...

Blessed with so many resources within myself the world was not necessary to me. I could do very well without it.

If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him; and it will then be but poor consolation to believe the world...

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope…I have loved none but you.

Her tears fell abundantly–but her grief was so truly artless, that no dignity could have made it more respectable in Emma’s eyes–and she listened to her and tried to console her with all her heart...

To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.

With this answer Elizabeth was forced to be content; but her own opinion continued the same, and she left disappointed and sorry. It was not in her nature, however, to increase her vexations by dwelling...

What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.

Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise.

And such is your definition of matrimony and dancing. Taken in that light, certainly their resemblance is not striking; but I think I could place them in such a view. You will allow that in...

Every young lady may feel for my heroine in this critical moment, for every young lady has at some time or other known the same agitation. All have been, or at least all have believed...

That is the case with us all, papa. One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.

I am now convinced that I have never been much in love; for had I really experienced that pure and elevating passion, I should at present detest his very name, and wish him all manner...

I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman’s inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman’s fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these...

…one half of her should not be always so much wiser than the other half…

but a sanguine temper, though for ever expecting more good than occurs, does not always pay for its hopes by any proportionate depression. it soon flies over the present failure, and begins to hope again.

She looked back as well as she could; but it was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she supposed and made everything bend to it.

Oh! you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general. You never see fault in any body. All the world are good and agreeable in your eyes. I never heard...

If I understand you rightly, you had formed a surmise of such horror as I have hardly words to– Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you...

Obstinate, headstrong girl!

Everybody pretends to feel and tries to describe with the taste and elegance of him who first defined what picturesque beauty was. I detest jargon of every kind, and sometimes I have kept my feelings...

Hay tanto de gratitud o de vanidad en casi todos los defectos, que no es cauto abandonarse de ellos.

An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is...

Business, you know, may bring you money, but friendship hardly ever does.

Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way

The pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.

She was determined, as she felt it to be her duty, to try to overcome all that was excessive.

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.

The more I see of the world, the more am i dissatisfied with it; and everyday confirms my belief of the inconsistencies of all human.

Nije isključeno da čovek može živeti i bez igranja. Poznati su i slučajevi u kojima su mladići i devojke proveli mnoge mesece, a da ni na kakvom balu nisu bili, štaviše, ni duh ni telo...

And now I may dismiss my heroine to the sleepless couch, which is the true heroine’s portion – to a pillow strewed with thorns and wet with tears. And lucky may she think herself, if...

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.

But there was happiness elsewhere which no description can reach.

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.

I am no novel-reader — I seldom look into novels — Do not imagine that I often read novels — It is really very well for a novel.” Such is the common cant. “And what...

I do not wish to avoid the walk. The distance is nothing when one has a motive.

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...

A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.

My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them──by which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents.

Respect for right conduct is felt by every body.

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

Where youth and diffidence are united, it requires uncommon steadiness of reason to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl in the world.

He was not handsome, and his manners required intimacy to make them pleasing.

The post office has a great charm at one point of our lives. When you have lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going through the rain for.

To look almost pretty, is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life, than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.

If my opinions are wrong, I must correct them—if they are above my station, I must endeavour to conceal them.