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Jane Austen
102 quotes
“Here I am once more in this scene of dissipation and vice, and I begin already to find my morals corrupted.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1796 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (August 1796) on arriving in London [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps one in a continual state of inelegance.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1796 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (1796-09-18) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“Next week I shall begin my operations on my hat, on which you know my principal hopes of happiness depend.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1798 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (1798-10-27) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“I am very much obliged to my dear little George for his message - for his love at least; his duty, I suppose, was only in consequence of some hint of my favorable intentions towards him from his father or mother. I am sincerely rejoiced, however, that I ever was born, since it has been the means of procuring him a dish of tea.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1798 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1798-12-18) about her nephew George [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1798 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1798-12-24) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“You deserve a longer letter than this; but it is my unhappy fate seldom to treat people so well as they deserve.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1798 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1798-12-24) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“I had a very pleasant evening, however, though you will probably find out that there was no particular reason for it; but I do not think it worth while to wait for enjoyment until there is some real opportunity for it.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (1799-01-21) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“She would tell you herself that she has a very dreadful cold in her head at present; but I have not much compassion for colds in the head without fever or sore throat.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1799-01-21) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“I am rather impatient to know the fate of my best gown.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1799-05-17) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“I cannot help thinking that it is more natural to have flowers grow out of the head than fruit.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1799-06-11) on decorating her hat [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“I can recollect nothing more to say at present; perhaps breakfast may assist my ideas. I was deceived — my breakfast supplied only two ideas — that the rolls were good and the butter bad.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (1799-06-19) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“In Paragon we met Mrs. Foley and Mrs. Dowdeswell with her yellow shawl airing out, and at the bottom of Kingsdown Hill we met a gentleman in a buggy, who, on minute examination, turned out to be Dr. Hall — and Dr. Hall in such very deep mourning that either his mother, his wife, or himself must be dead.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (1799-06-17) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“Your abuse of our gowns amuses but does not discourage me; I shall take mine to be made up next week, and the more I look at it the better it pleases me. My cloak came on Tuesday, and, though I expected a good deal, the beauty of the lace astonished me. It is too handsome to be worn — almost too handsome to be looked at.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (November 1800) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“I believe I drank too much wine last night at Hurstbourne; I know not how else to account for the shaking of my hand today. You will kindly make allowance therefore for any indistinctness of writing, by attributing it to this venial error.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1800-11-20) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“The General has got the gout, and Mrs. Maitland the jaundice. Miss Debary, Susan, and Sally, all in black, but without any stature, made their appearance, and I was as civil to them as their bad breath would allow me.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (1800-11-20) on people she met at a ball [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“We have been exceedingly busy ever since you went away. In the first place we have had to rejoice two or three times everyday at your having such very delightful weather for the whole of your journey...”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (1800-11-25) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1801 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (1801-01-03) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“You are very kind in planning presents for me to make, and my mother has shown me exactly the same attention; but as I do not choose to have generosity dictated to me, I shall not resolve on giving my cabinet to Anna till the first thought of it has been my own.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1801 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1801-01-08) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“Another stupid party last night; perhaps if larger they might be less intolerable, but here there were only just enough to make one card-table, with six people to look on and talk nonsense to each other.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1801 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1801-05-12) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“Mrs. B. and two young women were of the same party, except when Mrs. B. thought herself obliged to leave them to run round the room after her drunken husband. His avoidance, and her pursuit, with the probable intoxication of both, was an amusing scene.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1801 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (1801-05-12) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“I cannot anyhow continue to find people agreeable; I respect Mrs. Chamberlayne for doing her hair well, but cannot feel a more tender sentiment. Miss Langley is like any other short girl, with a broad nose and wide mouth, fashionable dress and exposed bosom. Adm. Stanhope is a gentleman-like man, but then his legs are too short and his tail too long.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1801 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1801-05-12) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“It would have amused you to see our progress. We went up by Sion Hill, and returned across the fields. In climbing a hill Mrs. Chamberlayne is very capital; I could with difficulty keep pace with her, yet would not flinch for the world. On plain ground I was quite her equal. And so we posted away under a fine hot sun, she without any parasol or any shade to her hat, stopping for nothing, and crossing the churchyard at Weston with as much expedition as if we were afraid of being buried alive.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1801 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1801-05-21) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“We are to have a tiny party here tonight. I hate tiny parties, they force one into constant exertion.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1801 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (1801-05-21) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“You will have a great deal of unreserved discourse with Mrs. K., I dare say, upon this subject, as well as upon many other of our family matters. Abuse everybody but me.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1807 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1807-01-07) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“Our little visitor has just left us, and left us highly pleased with her; she is a nice, natural, open-hearted, affectionate girl, with all the ready civility which one sees in the best children in the present day; so unlike anything that I was myself at her age, that I am often all astonishment and shame.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1807 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1807-02-08) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“You know how interesting the purchase of a sponge-cake is to me.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1808 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1808-06-15) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“The pleasures of friendship, of unreserved conversation, of similarity of taste and opinions will make good amends for orange wine.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1808 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1808-06-20) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“We spent Friday evening with our friends at the boarding-house, and our curiosity was gratified by the sight of their fellow-inmates, Mrs. Drew and Miss Hook, Mr. Wynne and Mr. Fitzhugh; the latter is brother to Mrs. Lance, and very much the gentleman. He has lived in that house more than twenty years, and poor man, is so totally deaf that they say he could not hear a cannon, were it fired close to him; having no cannon at hand to make the experiment, I took it for granted, and talked to him a little with my fingers, which was funny enough.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1808 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (1808-12-27) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“I am gratified by her having pleasure in what I write, but I wish the knowledge of my being exposed to her discerning criticism may not hurt my style, by inducing too great a solicitude. I begin already to weigh my words and sentences more than I did, and am looking about for a sentiment, an illustration, or a metaphor in every corner of the room. Could my ideas flow as fast as the rain in the store-closet it would be charming.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1809 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (1809-01-24) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“I am sorry to tell you that I am getting very extravagant, and spending all my money, and, what is worse for you, I have been spending yours too.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1811 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1811-04-18) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“I give you joy of our new nephew, and hope if he ever comes to be hanged it will not be till we are too old to care about it.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1811 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1811-04-25) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“My head-dress was a bugle-band like the border to my gown, and a flower of Mrs Tilson's. I depended upon hearing something of the evening from Mr. W. K., and am very well satisfied with his notice of me — "A pleasing looking young woman" — that must do; one cannot pretend to anything better now; thankful to have it continued a few years longer!”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1811 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (1811-04-30) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“How horrible it is to have so many people killed! And what a blessing that one cares for none of them!”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1811 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (1811-05-31) referring to the Peninsular War [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“I will not say that your mulberry-trees are dead, but I am afraid they are not alive.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1811 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1811-05-31) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“Mr. Digweed has used us basely. Handsome is as handsome does; he is therefore a very ill-looking man.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1813 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1813-01-24) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“Let me know when you begin the new tea, and the new white wine. My present elegancies have not yet made me indifferent to such matters. I am still a cat if I see a mouse.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1813 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1813-09-23) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“He seems a very harmless sort of young man, nothing to like or dislike in him — goes out shooting or hunting with the two others all the morning, and plays at whist and makes queer faces in the evening.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1813 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Cassandra (1813-09-23) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“By the bye, as I must leave off being young, I find many douceurs in being a sort of chaperon, for I am put on the sofa near the fire and can drink as much wine as I like.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1813 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (1813-11-06) on ageing [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“I cannot help hoping that many will feel themselves obliged to buy it. I shall not mind imagining it a disagreeable duty to them, so as they do it.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1813 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (1813-11-06) on the reprint of Sense and Sensibility [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“Devereux Forester's being ruined by his vanity is extremely good, but I wish you would not let him plunge into a "vortex of dissipation." I do not object to the thing, but I cannot bear the expression; it is such thorough novel slang, and so old that I daresay Adam met with it in the first novel he opened.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1814 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to niece Anna (1814-09-28) regarding a character in Anna's novel [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths. I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it, but fear I must.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1814 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Anna (1814-09-28) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“The Webbs are really gone! When I saw the waggons at the door, and thought of all the trouble they must have in moving, I began to reproach myself for not having liked them better, but since the waggons have disappeared my conscience has been closed again, and I am excessively glad they are gone.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1814 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Anna (1814-09-28) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are such beings in the world — perhaps one in a thousand — as the creature you and I should think perfection; where grace and spirit are united to worth, where the manners are equal to the heart and understanding; but such a person may not come in your way, or, if he does, he may not be the eldest son of a man of fortune, the near relation of your particular friend, and belonging to your own county.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1814 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Fanny Knight (1814-11-18) on finding love [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“His having been in love with the aunt gives Cecilia an additional interest with him. I like the idea — a very proper compliment to an aunt! I rather imagine indeed that nieces are seldom chosen but out of compliment to some aunt or another. I daresay Ben [Anna's husband] was in love with me once, and would never have thought of you if he had not supposed me dead of scarlet fever.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1814 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to niece Anna (1814-11-30) regarding characters in Anna's novel [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“I wish I could finish stories as fast as you can. I am much obliged to you for the sight of Olivia, and think you have done for her very well; but the good-for-nothing father, who was the real author of all her faults and sufferings, should not escape unpunished. I hope he hung himself, or took the surname of Bone or underwent some direful penance or other.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1814 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to niece Caroline (1814-12-06) regarding a story Caroline sent her [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“He and I should not in the least agree, of course, in our ideas of novels and heroines. Pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked; but there is some very good sense in what he says, and I particularly respect him for wishing to think well of all young ladies; it shows an amiable and a delicate mind. And he deserves better treatment than to be obliged to read any more of my works.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1816 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Fanny Knight (1816-03-23) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“I could no more write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No, I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1816 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Mr. Clarke (1816-04-01) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“We saw a countless number of post-chaises full of boys pass by yesterday morning — full of future heroes, legislators, fools, and villains. You have never thanked me for my last letter, which went by the cheese. I cannot bear not to be thanked.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1816 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to J. Edward Austen (1816-07-09) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“I give you joy of having left Winchester. Now you may own how miserable you were there; now it will gradually all come out, your crimes and your miseries — how often you went up by the Mail to London and threw away fifty guineas at a tavern, and how often you were on the point of hanging yourself, restrained only, as some ill-natured aspersion upon poor old Winton has it, by the want of a tree within some miles of the city.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1816 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to J. Edward Austen (1816-12-16) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]