Reading Jane Austen

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

All the world are good and agreeable in your eyes.

We can all begin freely--a slight preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement.

You could not make me happy, and I am convinced that I am the last woman in the world who would make you so.

Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.

I have nothing either to hope or fear, and nothing to reproach him with.

A man in distressed circumstances has not time for all those elegant decorums which other people may observe.

We were always good friends, and now we are better.

Every sentence of kindness was a fresh source of happiness to Jane.

To be sure you know no actual good of me--but nobody thinks of that when they fall in love.

The business of her life was to get her daughters married: its solace was visiting and news.

You have liked many a stupider person.

You are a very strange creature by way of a friend!

She was received, however, very politely by them; and in their brother’s manners there was something better than politeness--there was good-humour and kindness.

The power of doing anything with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance.

To yield readily--easily--to the persuasion of a friend is no merit with you.

The wisest and best of men,--nay, the wisest and best of their actions,--may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke.

I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding.

You wish to think all the world respectable, and are hurt if I speak ill of anybody.

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well.