Emma Quotes

“I cannot make speeches, Emma...If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it.”

“There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.”

“One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.”

“Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.”

“Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.”

“Without music, life would be a blank to me.”

“You must be the best judge of your own happiness.”

Never could I expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and always right in any man’s eyes as I am in my father’s.

I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.

Better be without sense than misapply it as you do.

I always deserve the best treatment, because I never put up with any other.

Men of sense, whatever you may choose to say, do not want silly wives.

I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him.

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.

How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!

Miss Bates had never boasted either beauty or cleverness. Her youth had passed without distinction, and her middle of life was devoted to the care of a failing mother, and the endeavor to make a small income go as far as possible. And yet she was a happy woman, and a woman whom no one named without good will.

Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.

Vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief.

She had nothing to wish otherwise, but that the days did not pass so swiftly. It was a delightful visit;—perfect, in being much too short.

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

A woman is not to marry a man merely because she is asked, or because he is attached to her, and can write a tolerable letter.

“I certainly must,′ said she. ‘This sensation of listlessness, weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself, this feeling of everything’s being dull and insipid about the house! I must be in love; I should be the oddest creature in the world if I were not.”

It is very difficult for the prosperous to be humble.

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

Blessed with so many resources within myself the world was not necessary to me. I could do very well without it.