Best Jane Austen Love Quotes & Sayings

Mama, the more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. — Jane Austen

If I truly loved a man, his fortune or lack of one would not make any difference to me. In any case, we cannot always choose with whom we fall in love. When it happens, it is not something we can just dismiss on a whim or tell to go away. There is no rhyme nor reason in matters of the heart. — Jane Odiwe

I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. 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. And, without love, I am sure I should be a fool to change such a situation as mine. Fortune I do not want; employment I do not want; consequence I do not want. — Jane Austen

Not all that Mrs. Bennet, however, with the assistance of her five daughters, could ask on the subject, was sufficient to draw from her husband any satisfactory description of Mr. Bingley. They attacked him in various ways - with barefaced questions, ingenious suppositions, and distant surmises; but he eluded the skill of them all, and they were at last obliged to accept the second-hand intelligence of their neighbour, Lady Lucas. Her report was highly favourable. Sir William had been delighted with him. He was quite young, wonderfully handsome, extremely agreeable, and, to crown the whole, he meant to be at the next assembly with a large party. Nothing could be more delightful! To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love; and very lively hopes of Mr. Bingley's heart were entertained. — Jane Austen

Her (Jane Austen) moral message is infused with ideological insistence on the merits of good conduct, good manners, sound reason, and marriage as an admirable social institution. She never scorns love, but balances it often . . . with a firm advocacy of . . . the qualities of self-knowledge, self-discipline, and practicality. — Andrew Sanders

I believed in happily ever after as much as anyone, because Jane Austen, Prince Charming, and Hugh Grant promised me it could happen.
But maybe that particular delusion was universal. — Robin Wasserman

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. In — Jane Austen

She felt the loss of Willoughby's character yet more heavily than she had felt the loss of his heart. — Jane Austen

We do not suffer by accident. It does not often happen that the interference of friends will persuade a young man of independent fortune to think no more of a girl whom he was violently in love with only a few days before — Jane Austen

I saw that he was looking anxious.
'I thought you weren't coming.' As he spoke, he grasped my hand. And if the sight of him had not quite restored the magic, the touch of him most certainly did. 'You're not wishing yourself some place else, Mary? — Jennifer Paynter

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 tonight or never. — Jane Austen

Love which did not build a foundation on good sense was doomed. — Jane Austen

Colonel Brandon was now as happy, as all those who best loved him, believed he deserved to be; - in Marianne he was consoled for every past affliction; - her regard and her society restored his mind to animation, and his spirits to cheerfulness; and that Marianne found her own happiness in forming his, was equally the persuasion and delight of each observing friend. Marianne could never love by halves; and her whole heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband, as it had once been to Willoughby. — Jane Austen

Artlessness will never do in love matters; and that girl is born a simpleton who has it either by nature or affectation. — Jane Austen

And so ended his affection," said Elizabeth impatiently. "There has
been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first
discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!"
"I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love," said Darcy. — Jane Austen

There is something soothing in the idea that we have the same friend, and that whatever unhappy differences of opinion may exist between us, we are united in our love of you. It — Jane Austen

He felt so tired, so weary of holding on with an iron grip to something he knew was slipping away.
"You can't make someone love you," he said.
Her hand stilled for a moment, the dirty tissue between her fingers. "True."
"Even if you love them so much you'd do anything, anything, for them." The truth of his words sank in. Speaking about it wasn't helping. It felt worse, like probing an open wound.
"Even if," his grandmasaid, nodding.
"Sometimes they pick another person to love when you've been right in front of them the whole time."
"It does happen." Her voice was soft.
"And then there's nothing left but to keep going as you were, pretending you never felt anything more than . . ."
"Friendship?" Her eyes met his and there was the faintest glimmer of tears.
"But I don't think I can have even that, anymore. — Mary Jane Hathaway

I have not known him long indeed, but I am much better acquainted with him than I am with any other creature in the world. — Jane Austen

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 — Jane Austen

These women, genteel and beautiful, are the rebels who say no to the choices made by silly mothers, incompetent fathers (there are seldom any wise fathers in Austen's novels) and the rigidly orthodox society. They risk ostracism and poverty to gain love and companionship, and to embrace that elusive goal at the heart of democracy: the right to choose. — Azar Nafisi

A woman in love with one man cannot flirt with another. — Jane Austen

The only other complaint I had about Jane's books, cousin-loving aside, was the getting-together part. They were stories of such unconquerable love, such strong feelings. You follow these characters through the ups and downs of an emotional roller coaster, this breathtaking will-they-or-won't -they, and is it too much to ask for a little more time spent on the I-love-you-and-want-to-be-with-you part? It was the very best part, and I wanted to draw it out. I wanted kisses--good, long, passionate ones. Jane never wrote about those."
-Devon
First & Then — Emma Mills

She closed her eyes, not really hearing the rest of what he murmured against her ear. All she knew was that it echoed everything that was in her heart. He was a surprise. Love was a surprise. And a surprise love between friends was the best kind of all. — Mary Jane Hathaway

I have a confession to make. I don't really want to know. I like a happy ending as well as the next person, but I love the mystery and the uncertainty and the electric current of possibility. There's a reason the best love stories end at the first kiss. Jane Austen had this down; it's all about the chase. We're not really interested in Elizabeth and Darcy after the wedding bells fade, or in Cinderella and her prince after the slipper is returned. — Sophie Blackall

A bookseller," said Grandfather, "is the link between mind and mind, the feeder of the hungry, very often the binder up of wounds. There he sits, your bookseller, surrounded by a thousand minds all done up neatly in cardboard cases; beautiful minds, courageous minds, strong minds, wise minds, all sorts and conditions. There come into him other minds, hungry for beauty, for knowledge, for truth, for love, and to the best of his ability he satisfies them all ... Yes ... It's a great vocation ... Moreover his life is one of wide horizons. He deals in the stuff of eternity and there's no death in a bookseller's shop. Plato and Jane Austen and Keats sit side by side behind his back, Shakespeare is on his right hand and Shelley on his left. — Elizabeth Goudge

This sweetest and best of all creatures, faultless in spite of all her faults. — Jane Austen

The futility of something is not always (in love and in politics) a sufficient argument against it — Jane Austen

To say that he is unlike Fanny is enough. It implies everything amiable. I love him already. — Jane Austen

Peter.' It was the first time I had used his name. 'You heard me sing tonight, did you not?'
'Yes, love.'
The endearment took my breath away - made me forget what I meant to say. I stood there with but one thought: He must care about me. — Jennifer Paynter

Elizabeth Bennet: And that put paid to it. I wonder who first discovered the power of poetry in driving away love?
Mr. Darcy: I thought that poetry was the food of love.
Elizabeth Bennet: Of a fine stout love, it may. But if it is only a vague inclination I'm convinced one poor sonnet will kill it stone dead
Mr. Darcy: So what do you recommend to encourage affection?
Elizabeth Bennet: Dancing. Even if one's partner is barely tolerable. — Jane Austen

Could there be finer symptoms? Is not general incivility the very essence of love? — Jane Austen

Lady Sondes' match surprises, but does not offend me; had her
first marriage been of affection, or had their been a grown-updaughter, I should not have forgiven her; but I consider
everybody as having a right to marry once in their lives for
love, if they can. — Jane Austen

You are infinitely my superior in merit; all that I know - You have qualities which I had not supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you, beyond what - not merely beyond what one sees, because one never sees any thing like it - but beyond what one fancies might be. But still I am not frightened. It is not by equality of merit that you can be won. That is out of the question. It is he who sees and worships your merit the strongest, who loves you most devotedly, that has the best right to a return. (326) — Jane Austen

It is indolence ... Indolence and love of ease; a want of all laudable ambition, of taste for good company, or of inclination to take the trouble of being agreeable, which make men clergymen. A clergyman has nothing to do but be slovenly and selfish; read the newspaper, watch the weather, and quarrel with his wife. His curate does all the work and the business of his own life is to dine. — Jane Austen

Before I could reply, he had picked me up, literally swept me off my feet, and kissed me. And afterwards, when I tried to speak, he silenced me in much the same manner. It was a shock (but not at all distasteful) to be so caught up. Later - when he at last set me down - he handled me more gently. He took of my glasses and told me that he loved me. — Jennifer Paynter

Feelings are warm, but I can imagine them rather changeable. - Every consideration of the subject, in short, makes me thankful that my happiness is not more deeply involved. - I shall do very well again after a little while - and then, it will be a good thing over; for they say every body is in love once in their lives, and I shall have been let off easily. When — Jane Austen

The whole story would have been speedily formed under her active imagination; and every thing established in the most melancholy order of disastrous love — Jane Austen

And they soon drew from those inquiries the full conviction that one of them at least knew what it was to love. Of the lady's sensations they remained a little in doubt; but that the gentleman was overflowing with admiration was evident enough. — Jane Austen

I certainly must,' said she. 'This sensation of listlessness, weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself, this feeling of everything's being dull and insipid about the house! I must be in love; I should be the oddest creature in the world if I were not. — Jane Austen

Aye, a very bad business indeed. A new sort of way this, for a young fellow to be making love, by breaking his mistress's head, is not it, Miss Elliot? This is breaking a head and giving a plaister truly! — Jane Austen

Fpr ome aftermppm a week leading up to the formal, the entire senior school body would pile into our massive gymnasium and learn dances that we would NEVER DANCE AGAIN, except at our own children's formals, perhaps. Nevertheless, we threw ourselves into the task as if we were living in a Jane Austen novel and this was the only way we would ever fit into society. (from How to Be Happy: A Memoir of Love, Sex and Teenage Confusion) — David Burton

She was of course only too good for him; but as nobody minds having what is too good for them, he was very steadily earnest in the pursuit of the blessing, and it was not possible that encouragement from her should be long wanting. — Jane Austen

What had she have to wish for? Nothing but to grow more worthy of him whose intentions and judgment had been ever so superior to her own. — Jane Austen

Good heaven! My dear Isabella, what do you mean? Can you
can you really be in love with James? — Jane Austen