There’s a reason Jane Austen is one of English literature’s most beloved writers—or as she would have referred to herself, an authoress. Her heroines are witty, vivacious and whip smart. They’re unconventional, defying the patriarchal paradigms of their times. Throughout the six novels Austen penned in her lifetime, she used her characters to deliver biting, erudite and downright hilarious lines about the trials and triumphs of love. Whether you’re on the precipice of falling head-over-heels for someone new or are moving on from a breakup, here are 55 Jane Austen quotes that’ll speak to every phase of your love life.
55 Jane Austen Quotes for Every Stage of Your Love Life
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Published Apr 11, 2023
1. “There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time.” — Mansfield Park
2. “There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.” — Emma
3. “To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.” — Pride and Prejudice
4. “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.” — Sense and Sensibility
5. “Their eyes instantly met, and the cheeks of both were overspread with the deepest blush.” — Pride and Prejudice
6. “I am determined that only the deepest love will induce me into matrimony.” — Pride and Prejudice
7. “Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing; but I have never been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.” — Emma
8. “I have no notion of loving people by halves.” — Northanger Abbey
9. “I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.” — Pride and Prejudice
10. “Till this moment I never knew myself.” — Pride and Prejudice
11. “She was one of those, who, having, once begun, would be always in love.” — Emma
12. “Perhaps it is our imperfections that make us so perfect for one another.” — Emma
13. “How quick come the reasons for approving what we like.” — Persuasion
14. “A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.” — Pride and Prejudice
15. “I cannot fix on the hour, 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.” — Pride and Prejudice
16. “Is not general incivility the very essence of love?” — Pride and Prejudice
17. “The very first moment I beheld him, my heart was irrevocably gone.” — Northanger Abbey
18. “If I could but know his heart, everything would become easy.” — Sense and Sensibility
19. “To love is to burn, to be on fire.” — Sense and Sensibility
20. “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.” — Pride and Prejudice
21. “We are all fools in love.” — Pride and Prejudice
22. “If I loved you less I might be able to talk about it more.” — Emma
23. “There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.” — Emma
24. “Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be in vain.” — Persuasion
25. “A man would always wish to give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from; and he who can do it, where there is no doubt of her regard, must, I think, be the happiest of mortals.” — Emma
26. “I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.” — Pride and Prejudice
27. “My heart is and always will be yours.” — Pride and Prejudice
28. “Yes, I found myself, by insensible degrees, sincerely fond of her; and the happiest hours of my life were what I spent with her.” — Sense and Sensibility
29. “I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice.” — Pride and Prejudice
30. “Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.” — Northanger Abbey
31. “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.” — Northanger Abbey
32. “Beware how you give your heart.” — Northanger Abbey
33. “The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!” — Sense and Sensibility
34. “Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.” — Pride and Prejudice
35. “Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then.” — Pride and Prejudice
36. “How little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue.” — Pride and Prejudice
37. “There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, 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.” — Pride and Prejudice
38. “I do think that men can forget a lost love quickly. I know that women would find it much harder.” — Persuasion
39. “Do anything rather than marry without affection.” — Pride and Prejudice
40. “I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.” — Persuasion
41. “One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.” — Emma
42. “What are young men to rocks and mountains?” — Pride and Prejudice
43. “There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.” — Pride and Prejudice
44. “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 forever.” — Pride and Prejudice
45. “My real purpose was to see you, and to judge, if I could, whether I might ever hope to make you love me.” — Pride and Prejudice
46. “You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever.” — Persuasion
47. “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.” — Persuasion
48. “I wish, as well as everybody else, to be perfectly happy; but, like everybody else, it must be in my own way.” — Sense and Sensibility
49. “I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other.” — Emma
50. “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.” — Northanger Abbey
51. “We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.” — Mansfield Park
52. “My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.” — Pride and Prejudice
53. “I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.” — Jane Austen
54. “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 merit or sense.” — Pride and Prejudice
55. “I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.” — Pride and Prejudice
