Best Jane Austen Quotes with Chapter Numbers

Jane Austen (1775-1817) was an English writer who has received wide love and appreciation for her six published works. These six novels are known for critiquing, interpreting, and parodying the landed gentry at the end of the 18th century through use of irony, realism, humor and social commentary. Her published novels include Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1816), Northanger Abbey (1817-1818) and Persuasion (1818), and she also has a scattering of other works.

Below, find the best quotes from all her published full-length novels with their corresponding chapter numbers! 

Sense and Sensibility (1811)

• A continuance in a place where every thing reminded her of former delight, was exactly what suited her mind. In seasons of cheerfulness, no temper could be more cheerful than hers, or possess, in a greater degree, that sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself.
• Chapter 2

• I could not be happy with a man whose taste did not in every point coincide with my own. He must enter into all my feelings; the same books, the same music must charm us both. 
• Chapter 3

• The more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!
• Chapter 3

• To wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect. 
• Chapter 4

• And yet there is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions. 
• Chapter 11

• 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. 
• Chapter 12

• I have not wanted syllables where actions have spoken so plainly. 
• Chapter 15

• "It is not every one," said Elinor, "who has your passion for dead leaves."
• Chapter 16

• I wish as well as every body else to be perfectly happy; but like every body else it must be in my own way. 
• Chapter 17

• Money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it. 
• Chapter 17

• Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge. 
• Chapter 17

• I never wish to offend, but I am so foolishly shy, that I often seem negligent, when I am only kept back by my natural awkwardness. . . . Shyness is only the effect of a sense of inferiority in some way or other. If I could persuade myself that my manners were perfectly easy and graceful, I should not be shy.
• Chapter 17

• Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience--or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope. 
• Chapter 19

• And Elinor was then at liberty to think and be wretched.
• Chapter 22

• She was stronger alone, and her own good sense so well supported her, that her firmness was as unshaken, her appearance of cheerfulness as invariable, as with regrets so poignant and so fresh, it was possible for them to be.
• Chapter 23

• "Pray, pray be composed," cried Elinor, "and do not betray what you feel to every body present." 
• Chapter 28

• Life could do nothing for her, beyond giving time for a better preparation for death.
• Chapter 31

• Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition. 
• Chapter 36

• If I could but know his heart, everything would become easy.
• Chapter 46

• I will be calm; I will be mistress of myself. 
• Chapter 48

• She almost ran out of the room, and as soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first she thought would never cease. 
• Chapter 48

Pride and Prejudice (1813)

• It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. 
• Chapter 1

• To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.
• Chapter 3

• I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.
• Chapter 5

• Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonimously. 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.
• Chapter 5

• A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.
• Chapter 6

• How pleasant it is to spend an evening in this way! I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book!--When I have a house of my own I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.
• Chapter 11

• I have no such pretension. I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for.--It is I believe too yielding--certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor their offences against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful.--My good opinion once lost is lost for ever.
• Chapter 11

• There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense.
• Chapter 24

• Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then. It is something to think of, and gives her a sort of distinction among her companions.
• Chapter 24

• Is not general incivility the very essence of love?
• Chapter 25

• What are men to rocks and mountains?
• Chapter 27

• There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.
• Chapter 31

• In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.
• Chapter 34

• Till this moment, I never knew myself. 
• Chapter 36

• Her heart did whisper, that he had done it for her.
• Chapter 52

• He is a gentleman. I am a gentleman's daughter; so far we are equal.
• Chapter 56

• I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.
• Chapter 56

• For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?
• Chapter 57

• You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.
• Chapter 58

• You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.
• Chapter 58

• I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.
• Chapter 60

• I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh.
• Chapter 60

Mansfield Park (1814)

• But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world, as there are pretty women to deserve them. 
• Chapter 1

• A fondness for reading, which, properly directed, must be an education in itself.
• Chapter 2

• What am I fit for but solitude?
• Chapter 3

• There will be little rubs and disappointments every where, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better; we find comfort somewhere. 
• Chapter 5

• Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure. 
• Chapter 7

• Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions. 
• Chapter 8

• Oh! do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch. 
• Chapter 9

• It was a quick succession of busy nothings.
• Chapter 10
• You may be familiar with the iteration "Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings" but that quote does not exist in Mansfield Park or any Jane Austen novel. That iteration was simply fabricated from this original quote for the infamous coffee mugs, t-shirts, etc. and can be found in the 1999 film adaptation of Mansfield Park. 

• The innovation, if not wrong as an innovation, will be wrong as an expense. 
• Chapter 13

• But indeed I would rather have nothing but tea. 
• Chapter 19

• How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind!
• Chapter 22

• A large income is the best recipé for happiness I ever heard of.
• Chapter 22

• Every moment had its pleasure and its hope.
• Chapter 28

• Let us have the luxury of silence. 
• Chapter 28

• She was feeling, thinking, trembling, about every thing; agitated, happy, miserable, infinitely obliged, absolutely angry. It was all beyond belief!
• Chapter 31

• You have qualities which I had not before supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you. 
• Chapter 34

• I was playing the fool with my eyes open.
• Chapter 35

• I was quiet, but I was not blind.
• Chapter 36

• Would they but love her, she should be satisfied.
• Chapter 38

• We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be. 
• Chapter 42

• Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore every body, not greatly in fault themselves, to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest. 
• Chapter 48

• Nobody minds having what is too good for them. 
• Chapter 48

Emma (1816)

• I lay it down as a general rule that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. 
• Chapter 7

• You must be the best judge of your own happiness.
• Chapter 7

• 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.
• Chapter 7

• Better be without sense, than misapply it as you do.
• Chapter 8

• Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.
• Chapter 8

• Men of sense, whatever you may chuse to say, do not want silly wives.
• Chapter 8

• One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.
• Chapter 9

• Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall. 
• Chapter 10

• There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.
• Chapter 11

• What a strange thing love is!
• Chapter 13

• It is such a happiness when good people get together--and they always do.
• Chapter 21

• She was one of those, who, having once begun, would be always in love. 
• Chapter 22

• Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. 
• Chapter 26

• The removal of one solicitude generally makes way for another.
• Chapter 30

• Why not seize the pleasure at once?--How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!
• Chapter 30

• Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise.
• Chapter 30

• There is no charm equal to the tenderness of heart, said she afterwards to herself. There is nothing to be compared to it. Warmth and tenderness of heart, with an affectionate, open manner, will beat all the clearness of head in the world, for attraction. I am sure it will. 
• Chapter 31

• It is not every man's fate to marry the woman who loves him best. 
• Chapter 32

• Without music, life would be a blank to me. 
• Chapter 32

• Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does. 
• Chapter 34

• If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. 
• Chapter 49

• Oh! I always deserve the best treatment, because I never put up with any other. 
• Chapter 54

Northanger Abbey (1817-1818)

• To look almost pretty, is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life, than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.
• Chapter 1

• If adventures will not befal a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.
• Chapter 1

• Now I must give one smirk, and then we may be rational again. 
• Chapter 3

• Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
• Chapter 4

• It is only a novel . . . 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 humour are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.
• Chapter 5

• Oh! I am delighted with the book! I should like to spend my whole life in reading it. 
• Chapter 6

• 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.
• Chapter 6

• Where the heart is really attached, I know very well how little one can be pleased with the attention of any body else.
• Chapter 6

• I shall not pay them any such compliment, I assure you. I have no notion of treating men with such respect. That is the way to spoil them.
• Chapter 6

• It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire . . . Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a something of shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the latter.
• Chapter 10

• If I could not be persuaded into doing what I thought wrong, I never will be tricked into it.
• Chapter 13

• The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.
• Chapter 14

• She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance. A misplaced shame. When people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind, is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing any thing, should conceal it as well as she can. 
• Chapter 14

• But Catherine did not know her own advantages--did not know that a good-looking girl, with an affectionate heart and a very ignorant mind, cannot fail of attracting a clever young man, unless circumstances are particularly untoward.
• Chapter 14

• Miss Morland, no one can think more highly of the understanding of women than I do. In my opinion, nature has given them so much, that they never find it necessary to use more than half. 
• Chapter 14

• Where people are really attached, poverty itself is wealth.
• Chapter 15

• I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.
• Chapter 16

• No man is offended by another man's admiration of the woman he loves; it is the woman only who can make it a torment.
• Chapter 19

• It is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible.
• Chapter 22

• Beware how you give your heart.
• Chapter 25

• To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen, is to do pretty well.
• Chapter 31

Persuasion (1818)

• How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!
• Chapter 2

• She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older -- the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.
• Chapter 4

• Anne hoped she had outlived the age of blushing; but the age of emotion she certainly had not.
• Chapter 6

• If there is any thing disagreeable going on, men are always sure to get out of it. 
• Chapter 7

• There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved. Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement. 
• Chapter 8

• But I hate to hear you talking so, like a fine gentlemen, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days. 
• Chapter 8

• Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn, that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness, that season which has drawn from every poet, worthy of being read, some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling. 
• Chapter 10

• She understood him. He could not forgive her,--but he could not be unfeeling. Though condemning her for the past, and considering it with high and unjust resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer, without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder of former sentiment; it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart, which she could not contemplate without emotions so compounded of pleasure and pain, that she knew not which prevailed.
• Chapter 10

• Time will explain.
• Chapter 16

• My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company. You are mistaken, said he gently, that is not good company, but that is the best.
• Chapter 16

• She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.
• Chapter 17

• She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! alas! she must confess to herself that she was not wise yet. 
• Chapter 19

• A man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart to such a woman!--He ought not--he does not. 
• Chapter 20

• When pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure. One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering--
• Chapter 20

• We certainly do not forget you, so soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves. 
• Chapter 23

• I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs, proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men. Perhaps I shall.--Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove any thing.
• Chapter 23

• All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, you need not covet it) is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.
• Chapter 23

• I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own, than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone I think and plan.--Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes?--I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice, when they would be lost on others.--Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating in   F.W.   I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening, or never. 
• Chapter 23

• When any two young people take it into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance to carry their point, be they ever so poor, or ever so imprudent, or ever so little likely to be necessary to each other's ultimate comfort. 
• Chapter 24