In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels. - (Austen, Jane - Affection)

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man is in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. - (Austen, Jane - Bachelor)

It is indolence... Indolence and love of ease; a want of all laudable ambition, of taste for good company, or of inclination to take the trouble of being agreeable, which make men clergymen. A clergyman has nothing to do but be slovenly and selfish; read the newspaper, watch the weather, and quarrel with his wife. His curate does all the work and the business of his own life is to dine. - (Austen, Jane - Churches)

It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation. - (Austen, Jane - Churches)

We do not look in our great cities for our best morality. - (Austen, Jane - Cities and City Life)

One has not great hopes from Birmingham. I always say there is something direful in the sound. - (Austen, Jane - Cities and City Life)

Those who do not complain are never pitied. - (Austen, Jane - Complaints and Complaining)

It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind; but when a beginning is made -- when the felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt -- it must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more. - (Austen, Jane - Dance and Dancing)

An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged; no harm can be done. - (Austen, Jane - Engagement)

You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least. - (Austen, Jane - Fear)

Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. And what are you reading, Miss -- -? Oh! it is only a novel! replies the young lady; while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda ; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humor, are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language. - (Austen, Jane - Fiction)

A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of. - (Austen, Jane - Income)

Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of. - (Austen, Jane - Judgment and Judges)

It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. - (Austen, Jane - Marriage)

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. - (Austen, Jane - Marriage)