Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced and the inconvenience is often considerable. – Jane Austen
Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies. – Jane Austen
For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn? – Jane Austen
Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied. – Jane Austen
A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can. – Jane Austen
One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty. – Jane Austen
Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. – Jane Austen
. . . it is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous study? – Jane Austen
One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. – Jane Austen
Those who do not complain are never pitied. – Jane Austen
Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast. – Jane Austen
I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. – Jane Austen
Where an opinion is general, it is usually correct. – Jane Austen
One has not great hopes from Birmingham. I always say there is something direful in the sound. – Jane Austen
One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering. – Jane Austen
It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;– it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others. – Jane Austen
With men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please, every feature works. – Jane Austen
There are certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are of pretty woman to deserve them. – Jane Austen
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 am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety. – Jane Austen
