Dress is at all times a frivolous distinction, and excessive solicitude about it often destroys its own aim. – 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
I am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety. – Jane Austen
The first purpose of clothes… was not warmth or decency, but ornament…. Among wild people, we find tattooing and painting even prior to clothes. The first spiritual want of a barbarous man is decoration; as indeed we still see among the barbarous classes in civilized countries. – Thomas Carlyle