"It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage."

"Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply; and it must be by a long and unnatural estrangement, by a divorce which no subsequent connection can justify, if such precious remains of the earliest attachments are ever entirely outlived."

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

"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."

"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."

"It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before."

"It was a very proper wedding. The bride was elegantly dressed--the two bridemaids were duly inferior--her father gave her away--her mother stood with salts in her hand expecting to be agitated--her aunt tried to cry-- and the service was impressively read by Dr. Grant."

"In books too, as well as in music, she courted the misery which a contrast between the past and present was certain of giving."

"Poverty is a great evil, but to a woman of education and feeling it ought not, it cannot be the greatest.-I would rather be a teacher at a school (and I can think of nothing worse) than marry a man I did not like."

"I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve."

"And she did what nobody thought of doing... she consulted Anne."

"In his library he had been always sure of leisure and tranquility; and though prepared, as he told Elizabeth, to meet with folly and conceit in every other room in the house, he was used to be free from them there."

"He will make you happy, Fanny; I know he will make you happy; but you will make him everything."

"Business, you know, may bring you money, but friendship hardly ever does."

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

"What do you know of my heart? What do you know of anything but your own suffering. For weeks, Marianne, I've had this pressing on me without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature. It was forced on me by the very person whose prior claims ruined all my hope. I have endured her exultations again and again whilst knowing myself to be divided from Edward forever. Believe me, Marianne, had I not been bound to silence I could have provided proof enough of a broken heart, even for you."

"We must not be so ready to fancy ourselves intentionally injured... It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us."

"She was sensible and clever, but eager in everything; her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation."

"With a book, he was regardless of time."

"But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she hardly had a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness."

"Her [Mrs Croft's] manners were open, easy, and decided, like one who had no distrust of herself, and no doubts of what to do; without any approach to coarseness, however, or any want of good humour. Anne gave her credit, indeed, for feelings of great consideration towards herself, in all that related to Kellynch; and it pleased her."

"Every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required."

"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."

"Every moment has its pleasures and its hope."

"He listened to her with perfect indifference while she chose to entertain herself in this manner; and as his composure convinced her that all was safe, her wit flowed long."

"It's a truth universally acknowledged..."

"Trusting that you will some time or other do me greater justice than you can do now."

"There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort."

"Sometime the worst type of weapon in the world is love."

"Respect for right conduct is felt by every body."

"A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of."

"They had no conversation together, no intercourse but what the commonest civility required. Once so much to each other! Now nothing! There had been a time, when of all the large party now filling the drawing-room at Uppercross, they would have found it most difficult to cease to speak to one another. With the exception, perhaps, of Admiral and Mrs. Croft, who seemed particularly attached and happy, (Anne could allow no other exception even among the married couples) there could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so simliar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved. Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become aquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement."

"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."

"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."

"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 everyday 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."

"Your feelings may be the strongest,' replied Anne, 'but the same spirit of analogy will authorise me to assert that ours are the most tender. Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer lived; which exactly explains my view of the nature of their attachments. Nay, it would be too hard upon you, if it were otherwise."

"But for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short."

"Time will explain."

"I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle."

"Whenever you are transplanted, like me, you will understand how very delightful it is to meet with anything at all like what one has left behind."

"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."

"Everybody pretends to feel and tries to describe with the taste and elegance of him who first defined what picturesque beauty was. 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."

"General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be."

"A person who can write a long letter with ease cannot write ill."

"Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of the mouths of other people."

"Everybody's heart is open you know when they have recently escaped from severe pain or are recovering the blessing of health."

"He may have as strong a sense of what would be right, as you can have, without being so equal under particular circumstances to act up to it.""Then, it would not be so strong a sense. If it failed to produce equal exertion, it could not be an equal conviction."

"When the evening was over, Anne could not but be amused at the idea of her coming to Lyme, to preach patience and resignation to a young man whom she had never seen before; nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination."

"Yet some happiness must and would arise, from the very conviction, that he did suffer."

"Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable."