Jane Austen quotes

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. 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.

I declare, after all, there is no enjoyment like reading!

Till this moment, I never knew myself.

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?

Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.

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

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.

But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days.