67 Inspirational Jane Austen Quotes [2024]

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Updated: January 20th, 2022

Jane Austen was an English novelist from the United Kingdom.

She was known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Her works explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favorable social standing and economic security. Some of her amazing novels include Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Persuasion.

As an honor, Austen is on the £10 note which was introduced in 2017, replacing Charles Darwin.

We've put together an incredible collection of Jane Austen quotes to read.

Here they are:

67 Inspirational Jane Austen Quotes [2024]

List of Inspiring Jane Austen Quotes

“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

“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.” - Jane Austen, Persuasion

“Ah! There is nothing like staying at home, for real comfort." - Jane Austen, Emma

"It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we do." - Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“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

“Angry people are not always wise.” - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

"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." - Jane Austen

"I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve." - Jane Austen

"Time will explain" - Jane Austen, Persuasion

“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.” - Jane Austen, Emma

“We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.” - Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

"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

"I wish, as well as everybody else, to be perfectly happy; but, like everybody else, it must be in my own way." - Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart...” - Jane Austen, Emma

"Better be without sense than misapply it as you do." - Jane Austen

"A woman, especially if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can." - Jane Austen

"A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of." - Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“I am very strong. Nothing ever fatigues me, but doing what I do not like.” - Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

"Good opinion once lost, is lost forever." - Jane Austen

"To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment." - Jane Austen

"How quick come the reasons for approving what we like." - Jane Austen

"None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives." - Jane Austen

“Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.” - Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.” - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

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

"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more." - Jane Austen, Emma

"Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure." - Jane Austen

"A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill." - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.” - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

"Everybody likes to go their own way—to choose their own time and manner of devotion." - Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

"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

"We are all fools in love." - Jane Austen

"Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterward to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life." - Jane Austen

“Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.” - Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

"But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them forever." - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

"It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion, to be secure of judging properly at first." - Jane Austen

"Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint!" - Jane Austen

“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

"When people are waiting, they are bad judges of time, and every half-minute seems like five." - Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

"Good-humored, unaffected girls, will not do for a man who has been used to sensible women. They are two distinct orders of being." - Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

"Indulge your imagination in every possible flight." - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her.” - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody. ” - Jane Austen

"What is right to be done, cannot be done too soon." - Jane Austen

“Pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked” - Jane Austen, Jane Austen's Letters

"Those who do not complain are never pitied." - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

"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

"The mere habit of learning to love is the thing; and a teachableness of disposition in a young lady is a great blessing." - Jane Austen

"When pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure." - Jane Austen, Persuasion

"There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves." - Jane Austen

"He is a gentleman, and I am a gentleman's daughter. So far we are equal." - Jane Austen

“I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.” - Pride and Prejudice

“Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.” - Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other.” - Jane Austen, Emma

"There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person." - Jane Austen, Emma

"To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment." - Jane Austen, Persuasion

"There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time." - Jane Austen

"One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other." - Jane Austen, Emma

“Is not general incivility the very essence of love?” - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

"It is very difficult for the prosperous to be humble."- Jane Austen, Emma

"Without music, life would be a blank to me." - Jane Austen

"Do not give way to useless alarm; though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain." - Jane Austen

"That sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself." - Jane Austen

"Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body." - Jane Austen

"One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty." - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

"One man’s style must not be the rule of another's." - Jane Austen, Emma

"Dress is at all times a frivolous distinction, and excessive solicitude about it often destroys its own aim.” - Jane Austen

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Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.

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