Jane Austen's Quotes From Sense and Sensibility

Jane Austen's Quotes From Sense and Sensibility make delightful reading. Are you impulsive and full of emotion like Marianne or are you more restrained in feeling like Elinor Dashwood? Plenty of charming Jane Austen's quotes from all the major characters of her famous and classic book.

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If you haven't yet read Sense and Sensibility then I hope this Jane Austen's quotes page inspires you to do so.

"Well, Marianne," said Elinor, as soon as he had left them, "for ONE morning I think you have done pretty well. You have already ascertained Mr Willoughby's opinion in almost every matter of importance."

"I do not attempt to deny," said she, "that I think very highly of him - that I greatly esteem, that I like him."

"Believe them [her feelings] to be stronger than I have declared; believe them, in short, to be such as his merit, and the suspicion - the hope of his affection for me may warrant, without imprudence or folly."

"You will soon have exhausted each favourite topic. Another meeting will suffice to explain his sentiments on picturesque beauty, and second marriages, and then you can have nothing farther to ask."

"There are inconveniences attending such feelings as Marianne's, which all the charms of enthusiasm and ignorance of the world cannot atone for. Her systems have all the tendency of setting propriety at nought; and a better acquaintance with the world is what I look forward to as her greatest possible advantage."

"I am afraid," replied Elinor, "that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety."

"It is all very strange! So suddenly to be gone! It seems but the work of a moment. And last night he was with us so happy, so cheerful, so affectionate? And now, after only ten minutes notice - Gone too without intending to return!"

"I confess," replied Elinor, "that every circumstance except ONE is in favour of their engagement; but that ONE is the total silence of both on the subject, and with me it almost outweighs every other."

"Why do you not ask Marianne at once," said she, "whether she is or she is not engaged to Willoughby? From you, her mother, and so kind, so indulgent a mother, the question could not give offence."

"I should hardly call her a lively girl - she is very earnest, very eager in all she does - sometimes talks a great deal and always with animation - but she is not often really merry."

"I like Edward Ferrars very much, and shall always be glad to see him; but as to the rest of the family, it is a matter of perfect indifference to me, whether I am ever known to them or not."

"Her sufferings have been very severe. I have only to hope that they may be proportionately short. It is been, it is a most cruel affliction."

"For four months, Marianne, I have had all this hanging on my mind, without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature; knowing that it would make you and my mother most unhappy."

"It was told me, - it was in a manner forced on me by the very person herself, whose prior engagement ruined all my prospects; and told me, as I thought, with triumph."

"The unkindness of your own relations has made you astonished to find friendship anywhere."

"Had you married, you must have been always poor. His expensiveness is acknowledged even by himself, and his whole conduct declares that self-denial is a word hardly understood by him. His demands and your inexperience together, on a small, very small income, must have brought on distresses which would not be the LESS grievous to you."

"The whole of his behaviour," replied Elinor, "from the beginning to the end of the affair, has been grounded on selfishness. It was selfishness which first made him sport with your affections; which afterwards, when his own were engaged, made him delay the confession of it."

"At present," continued Elinor, "he regrets what he has done. And why does he regret it? - Because he finds it has not answered towards himself. It has not made him happy. His circumstances are now unembarrassed - he suffers from no evil of that kind; and he thinks only that he has married a woman of a less amiable temper than yourself."

"And your mother has brought on herself a most appropriate punishment. The independence she settled on Robert, through resentment against you, has put it in his power to make his own choice; and she has actually been bribing one son with a thousand a-year, to do the very deed which she disinherited the other for intending to do. She will hardly be less hurt, I suppose, by Robert's marrying Lucy, than she would have been by your marrying her."

"Perhaps, then, you would bestow it as a reward on that person who wrote the ablest defence of your favourite maxim, that no one can ever be in love more than once in their life - your opinion on that point is unchanged, I presume?"

"I hope my mother is now convinced that I have no more talents than inclination for a public life!"

"I have no wish to be distinguished; and have every reason to hope I never shall. Thank Heaven! I cannot be forced into genius and eloquence."

"But gaiety never was a part of MY character."

"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."

"I always preferred the church, as I still do. But that was not smart enough for my family. They recommended the army. That was a great deal too smart for me."

"Perhaps you mean - my brother - you mean Mrs. - Mrs. ROBERT Ferrars."

"Perhaps you do not know - you may not have heard that my brother is lately married to - to the youngest - to Miss Lucy Steele."

"Lucy appeared everything that was amiable and obliging. She was pretty too - at least I thought so THEN; and I had seen so little of other women, that I could make no comparisons, and see no defects. Considering everything, therefore, I hope, foolish as our engagement was, foolish as it has since in every way been proved, it was not at the time an unnatural or an inexcusable piece of folly."

"Edward is very amiable, and I love him tenderly. But yet - he is not the kind of young man - there is something wanting - his figure is not striking; it has none of that grace which I should expect in the man who could seriously attach my sister. His eyes want all that spirit, that fire, which at once announce virtue and intelligence."

"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."

"Esteem him! Like him! Cold-hearted Elinor! Oh! worse than cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise. Use those words again, and I will leave the room this moment."

"That is what I like; that is what a young man ought to be. Whatever be his pursuits, his eagerness in them should know no moderation, and leave him no sense of fatigue."

"I abhor every common-place phrase by which wit is intended; and 'setting one's cap at a man,' or 'making a conquest,' are the most odious of all. Their tendency is gross and illiberal; and if their construction could ever be deemed clever, time has long ago destroyed all its ingenuity."

"I detest jargon of every kind, and sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in but what was worn and hackneyed out of all sense and meaning."

"The rent of this cottage is said to be low; but we have it on very hard terms, if we are to dine at the park whenever any one is staying either with them, or with us."

"Go to him, Elinor," she cried, as soon as she could speak, "and force him to come to me. Tell him I must see him again - must speak to him instantly."

"Mine is a misery which nothing can do away."

"This lock of hair, which now he can so readily give up, was begged of me with the most earnest supplication. Had you seen his look, his manner, had you heard his voice at that moment!"

"I saw in my own behaviour, since the beginning of our acquaintance with him last autumn, nothing but a series of imprudence towards myself, and want of kindness to others. I saw that my own feelings had prepared my sufferings, and that my want of fortitude under them had almost led me to the grave."

"The kindness, the unceasing kindness of Mrs. Jennings, I had repaid with ungrateful contempt. To the Middletons, to the Palmers, the Steeles, to every common acquaintance even, I had been insolent and unjust; with a heart hardened against their merits, and a temper irritated by their very attention."

"Brandon is just the kind of man," said Willoughby one day, when they were talking of him together, "whom every body speaks well of, and nobody cares about; whom all are delighted to see, and nobody remembers to talk to."

"I have three unanswerable reasons for disliking Colonel Brandon; he threatened me with rain when I wanted it to be fine; he has fund fault with the hanging of my curricle, and I cannot persuade him to buy my brown mare."

"There are some people who cannot bear a party of pleasure. Brandon is one of them. He was afraid of catching a cold I dare say, and invented this trick for getting out of it. I would lay fifty guineas the letter was of his own writing."

"Improve this dear cottage! No. THAT I will never consent to. Not a stone must be added to its walls, not an inch to its size, if my feelings are regarded."

"... but this place will always have one claim of my affection, which no other can possibly share."

"It is folly to linger in this manner. I will not torment myself any longer by remaining among friends whose society it is impossible for me now to enjoy."

"I mean," - said he, with serious energy - "if I can, to make you hate me one degree less than you do NOW. I mean to offer some kind of explanation, some kind of apology, for the past; to open my whole heart to you, and by convincing you, that though I have been always a blockhead, I have not been always a rascal, to obtain something like forgiveness from Ma - from your sister."

"My affection for Marianne, my thorough conviction of her attachment to me - it was all insufficient to outweigh that dread of poverty, or get the better of those false ideas of the necessity of riches, which I was naturally incined to feel, and expensive society had increased."

"Marianne's note, by assuring me that I was still as dear to her as in former days, that in spite of the many, many weeks we had been separated, she was as constant in her own feelings, and as full of faith in the constancy of mine as ever, awakened all my remorse."

"But she will be gained by some one else. And if that some one should be the very he whom, of all others, I could least bear - but I will not stay to rob myself of all your compassionate goodwill, by shewing that where I have most injured I can least forgive."

"Your sister, I understand does not approve of second attachments."

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

"No, no, do not desire it; for when the romantic refinements of a young mind are obliged to give way, how frequently are they succeeded by such opinions as are but too common, and too dangerous!"

"I once knew a lady who in temper and mind greatly resembled your sister, who thought and judged like her, but from an inforced change - from a series of unfortunate circumstances" - Here he stopped suddenly.

"to your sister I wish all imaginable happiness; to Willoughby that he may endeavour to deserve her."

"Little did Mr. Willoughby imagine, I suppose, when his looks censured me for incivility in breaking up the party, that I was called away to the relief of one whom he had made poor and miserable."

"The cruelty, the impolitic cruelty," - he replied, with great feeling, - "of dividing, or attempting to divide, two young people long attached to each other, is terrible."

"Yes. I have explained it to myself in the most satisfatory way; - but you, Elinor, who love to doubt where you can - it will not satisfy YOU, I know; but you shall not talk ME out of my trust in it."

"I feel no sentiment of approbation inferior to love."

"Oh, Elinor, how incomprehensible are your feelings! You had rather take evil upon credit than good. You had rather look out for misery for Marianne, and guilt for poor Willoughby, than an apology for the latter. You are resolved to think him blameable, because he took leave of us with less affection than his usual behaviour has shewn."

"I have not wanted syllables where actions have spoken so plainly. Has not his behaviour to Marianne and to all of us, for at least the last fortnight, declared that he loved and considered her as his future wife, and that he felt for us the attachment of the nearest relation?"

"Has he [Willoughby] been acting a part in his behaviour to your sister all this time?"

"Ungracious girl! But I require no such proof. Nothing in my opinion has ever passed to justify doubt; no secrecy has been attempted; all has been uniformly open and unreserved."

"At last we are alone. My Elinor, you do not yet know all my happiness. Colonel Brandon loves Marianne. He has told me so himself."

"He has loved her, my Elinor, ever since the first moment of seeing her."

"His regard for her, infinitely surpassing anything that Willoughby ever felt or feigned, as much more warm, as more sincere or constant - which ever we are to call it - has subsisted through all the knowledge of dear Marianne's unhappy prepossession for tht worthless young man!"

"Time, a very little time, I tell him, will do everything; - Marianne's heart is not to be wasted for ever on such a man as Willoughby."

"There was always a something, - if you remember, - in Willoughby's eyes at times, which I did not like."

"It was my father's last request to me," replied her husband, "that I should assist his widow and daughters."

"I would not wish to do any thing mean," he replied. "One had rather, on such occasion, do too much than too little."

"It is certainly an unpleasant thing," replied Mr. Dashwood, "to have those kind of yearly drains on one's income. One's fortune, as your mother justly says, is NOT one's own."

"And so you are most comfortably settled in your little cottage and want for nothing!"

"one must allow that there is something very trying to a young woman who HAS BEEN a beauty in the loss of her personal attractions."

"Edward said very little; but what he did say, was in the most determined manner. Nothing should prevail on him to give up his engagement. He would stand to it, cost him what it might."

"He did not know what he was talking of, I dare say; ten to one but he wa light-headed at the time. Had he been in his right senses, he could not have thought of such a thing as begging you to give away half your fortune from your own child." - to John Dashwood

"Consider," she added, "that when the money is once parted with, it never can return. Your sisters will marry, and it will be gone for ever."

"Oh! beyond anything great! What brother on earth would do half so much for his sisters, even if REALLY his sisters! And as it is - only half blood!"

"... if you observe, people always live for ever when there is an annuity to be paid them; and she is very stout and healthy, and hardly forty. An annuity is a very serious business; it comes over and over every year, and there is no getting rid of it."

"And I must say this: that you owe no particular gratitude to him, nor attention to his wishes; for we very well know that if he could, he would have left almost everything in the world to THEM."

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