Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility (1811)

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Are no probabilities to be accepted, merely because they are not certainties?

Jane Austen
A woman of seven and twenty, said Marianne, after pausing a moment, can never hope to feel or inspire affection again.

Jane Austen
I have frequently detected myself in such kind of mistakes... in a total misapprehension of character at some point or other: fancying people so much more gay or grave, or ingenious or stupid than they really are, and I can hardly tell why, or in what the deception originated. Sometimes one is guided by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge.

Jane Austen
Yes, I found myself, by insensible degrees, sincerely fond of her; and the happiest hours of my life were what I spent with her.

Jane Austen
What have wealth or grandeur to do with happiness?" Grandeur has but little," said Elinor, "but wealth has much to do with it." Elinor, for shame!" Said Marianne. "Money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it...

Jane Austen
But to appear happy when I am so miserable — Oh! who can require it?

Jane Austen
Elinor was to be the comforter of others in her own distresses, no less than in theirs; and all the comfort that could be given by assurances of her own composure of mind, and a very earnest vindication of Edward from every charge but of imprudence, was readily offered.

Jane Austen
She was without any power, because she was without any desire of command over herself.

Jane Austen
Lady Middleton... exerted herself to ask Mr. Palmer if there was any news in the paper. 'No, none at all,' he replied, and read on.

Jane Austen
He listened to her with silent attention, and on her ceasing to speak, rose directly from his seat, and after saying in a voice of emotion, 'To your sister I wish all imaginable happiness; to Willoughby, that he may endeavor to deserve her,' took leave, and went away.

Jane Austen
To her own heart it was a delightful affair, to her imagination it was even a ridiculous one, but to her reason, her judgment, it was completely a puzzle.

Jane Austen
We have neither of us anything to tell; you, because you do not communicate, and I, because I conceal nothing.

Jane Austen
I have not wanted syllables where actions have spoken so plainly.

Jane Austen
I have never yet known what it was to separate esteem from love

Jane Austen
On every formal visit a child ought to be of the party, by way of provision for discourse.

Jane Austen
Told herself likewise not to hope. But it was too late. Hope had already entered…

Jane Austen
Where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?

Jane Austen
Fortunately for those who pay their court through such foibles, a fond mother, though, in pursuit of praise for her children, the most rapacious of human beings, is likewise the most credulous; her demands are exorbitant; but she will swallow any thing...

Jane Austen
Brandon is just the kind of man whom every body speaks well of, and nobody cares about; whom all are delighted to see, and nobody remembers to talk to.

Jane Austen
I cannot make speeches, Emma...If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it.

Jane Austen
Her form, though not so correct as her sister's, in having the advantage of height, was more striking; and her face was so lovely, that when in the common cant of praise she was called a beautiful girl, truth was less violently outraged than usually happens.

Jane Austen
Life could do nothing for her, beyond giving time for a better preparation for death.

Jane Austen
From a night of more sleep than she had expected, Marianne awoke the next morning to the same consciousness of misery in which she had closed her eyes.

Jane Austen
She was not a woman of many words: for, unlike people in general, she proportioned them to the number of her ideas...

Jane Austen
They gave themselves up wholly to their sorrow, seeking increase of wretchedness in every reflection that could afford it, and resolved against ever admitting consolation in future.

Jane Austen
His own enjoyment, or his own ease, was, in every particular, his ruling principle.

Jane Austen
Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience- or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.

Jane Austen
She was stronger alone; and her own good sense so well supported her, that her firmness was as unshaken, her appearance of cheerfulness as invariable, as, with regrets so poignant and so fresh, it was possible for them to be.

Jane Austen
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.

Jane Austen
A person and face, of strong, natural, sterling insignificance, though adorned in the first style of fashion.

Jane Austen