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
It is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are they the result of previous study?
The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.
Do not give way to useless alarm; though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain.
You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.” (Elizabeth Bennett)
Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.
She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me, and I am in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.
Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.
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.
Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.
Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride – where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation.