The 25 Best Jane Austen Quotes

The wittiest woman in literature is still one of our favourite authors of all time. To celebrate what would have been her birthday, here's our rundown of her most brilliantly eloquent quotes...

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

Pride and Prejudice

2. 'Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.' Mansfield Park

3. 'The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.' Northanger Abbey

4. 'To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.' Pride and Prejudice

5. 'Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.' Mansfield Park

6. 'A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.' Pride and Prejudice

7. 'There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.' Pride and Prejudice

8. 'Nobody minds having what is too good for them.' Mansfield Park

9. 'A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.' Mansfield Park

10. 'Is not general incivility the very essence of love?' Pride and Prejudice

11. 'Nothing ever fatigues me, but doing what I do not like.' Mansfield Park

12. 'You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.' Pride and Prejudice

13. 'Those who do not complain are never pitied.' Pride and Prejudice

14. 'It isn't what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.' Sense and Sensibility

15. 'How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!' Persuasion

16. 'There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.' Emma

17. 'For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours and laugh at them in our turn?' Pride and Prejudice

18. 'To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.' Persuasion

19. 'Business, you know, may bring you money, but friendship hardly ever does.' Emma

20. 'Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion.' Pride and Prejudice

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

22. 'I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other.' Emma

23. 'My sore throats are always worse than anyone's.' Persuasion

24. 'Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then. It is something to think of.' Pride and Prejudice

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