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"The older a person grows, Harriet, the more important it is that their manners should not be bad; the more glaring and disgusting any loudness, or coarseness, or awkwardness becomes. What is passable in youth is detestable in later age."
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"It takes all sorts of people to make a world, as I've often heard, but I think there are some who could be spared,' Anne told her reflection in the east gable mirror that night."

"Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call 'society'. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home."

"Your water is in the bottles, and my water is in the bucket, but we are brothers? I am collecting garbage, and you are in the bed, but we are sisters? My fingers are broken, and your hands are so soft, but we are family? Your God is like an angel, and my God is like an evil, but we are equal? My stomach is empty, and your stomach is so big, but we are humans?"

"PLEASE and THANK YOU...two polite phrases which are slowly disappearing from our vocabulary."

"We...advance toward a state of society in which not only each man but every impulse in each man claims carte blanche."

"It is ever so much easier to be good if your clothes are fashionable."

"People are very busy; they are so busy that when they walk in the crowds they see no one, no one but themselves; they hear no voice, no voice but their own voice!"
Explore more quotes by Jane Austen

"If, however, I am allowed to think that you and yours feel an interest in my fate and actions, it may be the means-it may put me on my guard-at least, it may be something to live for."

"There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do if he chooses, and that is his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and resolution. - Mr. Knightley."

"That will do extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let the other young ladies have time to exhibit."

"They were rather handsome, had been educated in one of the first private seminaries in town."

"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."

"There are certainly not so many men of large fortune in the world, as there are pretty women to deserve them."

"She had received ideas which disposed her to be courteous and kind to all, and to pity every one, as being less happy than herself."

"My good qualities are under your protection, and you are to exaggerate them as much as possible; and, in return, it belongs to me to find occasion for teasing and quarreling with you as often as may be..."

"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."
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