“I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them.”
Jane Austen
“Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.”
Jane Austen, Emma
“A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.”
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
“Everybody likes to go their own way–to choose their own time and manner of devotion.”
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
“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
“You deserve a longer letter than this; but it is my unhappy fate seldom to treat people so well as they deserve.”
— letter December 24 1798
“I shall not tell you anything more of Wm. Digweed’s china, as your silence on the subject makes you unworthy of it.”
— letter of December 27, 1808
“Your silence on the subject of our ball makes me suppose your curiosity too great for words.”
— letter of January 24, 1809
“I find, on looking into my affairs, that instead of being very rich I am likely to be very poor… as we are to meet in Canterbury I need not have mentioned this. It is as well, however, to prepare you for the sight of a sister sunk in poverty, that it may not overcome your spirits.”
— letter of August 24 1805
[On the weather:]
“We have been exceedingly busy ever since you went away. In the first place we have had to rejoice two or three times every day at your having such very delightful weather for the whole of your journey…”
— letter of October 25 1800