The quotations of

Jane Austen

Author, novelist, writer

1775–1817

77 quotes, most often on Love, Comedy and Marriage.

Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.
Emma (1815), Volume I, Chapter XVIIIIn context
- Family
There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.
Emma (1815), Volume II, Chapter VIIn context
- Character
- Love
Surprizes are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.
Emma (1815), Volume II, Chapter VIIIIn context
- Comedy
I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise.
Emma (1815), Volume II, Chapter XIIIn context
- Happiness
- Wisdom
Ah! there is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.
Emma (1815), Volume II, Chapter XIVIn context
- Happiness
Anne hoped she had outlived the age of blushing; but the age of emotion she certainly had not.
Persuasion (1817), Chapter VIIn context
- Age
- Emotion
“I pay very little regard,” said Mrs. Grant, “to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person.”
Mansfield Park (1814), Chapter IVIn context
- Marriage
We do not look in great cities for our best morality.
Mansfield Park (1814), Chapter IXIn context
- Morality
“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.”
Mansfield Park (1814), Chapter IXIn context
- Comedy
- Time
How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind!
Mansfield Park (1814), Chapter XXIIIn context
- Change
- Time
Nothing amuses me more than the easy manner with which everybody settles the abundance of those who have a great deal less than themselves.
Mansfield Park (1814), Chapter XXIIIIn context
- Money
“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 of.”
Mansfield Park (1814), Chapter XXXVIIn context
- Love
- Men
No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine.
Northanger Abbey (1817), Chapter 1In context
- Writing
I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all⁠—it is very tiresome
Northanger Abbey (1817), Chapter 14In context
- History
- Women
Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid.
Northanger Abbey (1817), Chapter 14In context
- Intelligence
- Knowledge

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