Photo: From a watercolour by James Andrews of Maidenhead based on an unfinished work by Cassandra Austen. Engraving by William Home Lizars., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The late 18th century novelist had lots to say that still rings true.
By Deauna Roane — Written on Dec 14, 2021
Jane Austen was an English novelist who is best known for her six major works of fiction that created some of the greatest love stories of all time. These six novels gained her great admiration for their critique of British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century.
Through her plots, Austen explored the dependency women faced on marriage in order to obtain social standing and stability in life.
Though these novels are cemented in a period we no longer live in, Austen's characters have the same personalities, worries, and dreams as people do today. The themes themselves are still very real.
Sadly, her work wasn't appreciated for what they were until after her death. Now, however, she is placed among other great novelists and literary figures of her time, and her work is featured on reading lists for schools all over the world.
Austen's most famous works include "Pride and Prejudice", "Emma", "Persuasion", and "Sense and Sensibility." Those are only a few, and yet, they all have some, if not many, film adaptations.
How better to celebrate the incredible and relevant woman she is and was than with our favorite Jane Austen quotes from her best works of classic literature?
69 Best Jane Austen Quotes on Love, Life, Friendship and Being a Woman
Jane Austen Quotes About Love and Marriage
- "If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more." — Jane Austen, "Emma"
- “A woman is not to marry a man merely because she is asked, or because he is attached to her, and can write a tolerable letter.” — Jane Austen, "Emma"
- "Do anything rather than marry without affection.” — Jane Austen, "Pride and Prejudice"
- “In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” — Jane Austen, "Pride and Prejudice"
- "I pay very little regard 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." ― Jane Austen, "Mansfield Park"
- "There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart." — Jane Austen, "Emma"
- "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." — Jane Austen, "Pride and Prejudice"
- “Marriage is indeed a maneuvering business.” ― Jane Austen, "Mansfield Park"
Jane Austen Quotes About Friendship
- “Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.” — Jane Austen, "Northanger Abbey"
- “My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.” — Jane Austen, "Persuasion"
- “There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.” — Jane Austen, "Northanger Abbey"
- "But remember that the pain of parting from friends will be felt by everybody at times, whatever be their education or state." — Jane Austen, "Sense and Sensibility"
- "Business, you know, may bring you money, but friendship hardly ever does." — Jane Austen, "Emma"
- “I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.” — Jane Austen, "Jane Austen's Letters 24 December 1798"
Jane Austen Quotes About Women
- "Man has the advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal." — Jane Austen, "Northanger Abbey"
- "…her mind about as ignorant and uninformed as the female mind at seventeen usually is." — Jane Austen, "Northanger Abbey"
- "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 imagine." — Jane Austen, "Northanger Abbey"
- "Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion." — Jane Austen, "Pride and Prejudice"
- "Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody." — Jane Austen, "Mansfield Park"
- "All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one: you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone!" — Jane Austen, "Persuasion"
- "A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment." — Jane Austen, "Pride and Prejudice"
Jane Austen ‘Emma’ Quotes
“I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.” — Jane Austen, "Emma"
- “I always deserve the best treatment, because I never put up with any other.” — Jane Austen, "Emma"
- “Men of sense, whatever you may choose to say, do not want silly wives.” — Jane Austen, "Emma"
- “I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him.” — Jane Austen, "Emma"
- “If things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next.” — Jane Austen, "Emma"
- “One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.” — Jane Austen, "Emma"
- “Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.” — Jane Austen, "Emma"
- “Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.” — Jane Austen, "Emma"
- “Without music, life would be a blank to me.” — Jane Austen, "Emma"
- "There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves." — Jane Austen, "Emma"
Jane Austen ‘Pride and Prejudice’ Quotes
- “Angry people are not always wise.” ― Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice”
- “Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her.” ― Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice”
- "I have not the pleasure of understanding you." ― Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice”
- "To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love." ― Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice”
- "I certainly have not the talent which some people possess, of conversing easily with those I have never seen before." ― Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice”
- "Every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required." ― Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice”
- "I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve." ― Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice”
- "My good opinion once lost is lost forever.” ― Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice”
- "There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me." ― Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice”
- "Nothing is more deceitful…than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast." ― Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice”
Jane Austen ‘Sense and Sensibility' Quotes
- "I will be calm; I will be mistress of myself." — Jane Austen, "Sense and Sensibility"
- "Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience; or give it a more fascinating name: call it hope." — Jane Austen, "Sense and Sensibility"
- "There is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions." — Jane Austen, "Sense and Sensibility"
- "Shyness is only the effect of a sense of inferiority in some way or other. If I could persuade myself that my manners were perfectly easy and graceful, I should not be shy." — Jane Austen, "Sense and Sensibility"
- "As moderate as those of the rest of the world, I believe. I wish as well as everybody else to be perfectly happy; but, like everybody else it must be in my own way. Greatness will not make me so." — Jane Austen, "Sense and Sensibility"
- "If I could but know his heart, everything would become easy." — Jane Austen, "Sense and Sensibility"
- "Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others." — Jane Austen, "Sense and Sensibility"
- "I will not torment myself any longer by remaining among friends whose society it is impossible for me now to enjoy." — Jane Austen, "Sense and Sensibility"
Jane Austen ‘Persuasion’ Quotes
- “I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope…I have loved none but you.” — Jane Austen, "Persuasion"
- “A man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart to such a woman! He ought not; he does not.” — Jane Austen, "Persuasion"
- "There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved." — Jane Austen, "Persuasion"
- "When pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure." — Jane Austen, "Persuasion"
- "One man's ways may be as good as another's, but we all like our own best." — Jane Austen, "Persuasion"
- "I would rather be overturned by him, than driven safely by anybody else." — Jane Austen, "Persuasion"
- "She learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning." — Jane Austen, "Persuasion"
- "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." — Jane Austen, "Persuasion"
- "Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death." — Jane Austen, "Persuasion"
- "When I have made up my mind, I have made it." — Jane Austen, "Persuasion"
Jane Austen Quotes From 'Mansfield Park
- “I think it ought not to be set down as certain that a man must be acceptable to every woman he may happen to like himself.” — Jane Austen, "Mansfield Park"
- "He will make you happy, Fanny; I know he will make you happy; but you will make him everything." — Jane Austen, "Mansfield Park"
- “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.” — Jane Austen, "Mansfield Park"
- “A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.” — Jane Austen, "Mansfield Park"
- “You must really begin to harden yourself to the idea of being worth looking at.” — Jane Austen, "Mansfield Park"
- "Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions." — Jane Austen, "Mansfield Park"
- "Every moment had its pleasure and its hope." — Jane Austen, "Mansfield Park"
- “I am very strong. Nothing ever fatigues me but doing what I do not like.” — Jane Austen, "Mansfield Park"
- “Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.” — Jane Austen, "Mansfield Park"
- "Selfishness must always be forgiven, you know, because there is no hope of a cure." — Jane Austen, "Mansfield Park"
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Deauna Nunes is an assistant editor who covers pop culture, lifestyle, love and relationship topics for YourTango. She's been published by Emerson College's literary magazine Generic. Follow her on Twitter and on Instagram.