If you love to get lost in the romantic classics, you will love these Jane Austen quotes about love from all six of her timeless novels about love. No matter what your favorite Jane Austen book is, there’s something here for everyone that will ring true and make you feel something.
I can’t help but be a Jane Austen fan, not only because her books are so beautiful and timeless, but also because they are on the list of books referenced on the Gilmore Girls, which my book club reads.
These popular literary love quotes are perfect for DIY wedding ceremony scripts and beyond!
First, I share the best Jane Austen quotes about love from all six of her novels, in chronological order, and then I answer frequently asked questions about them.
Jane Austen Quotes About Love
Below are all the best Jane Austen quotes about love, separated by novel, in the order they were published.
Northanger Abby
“I have no notion of loving people by halves.”
“It must be improper that a young lady should dream of a gentleman before the gentleman is known to have dreamt of her.”
“Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.”
“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.”
“Beware how you give your heart.”
“Where the heart is really attached, I know very well how little one can be pleased with the attention of any body else.”
“The very first moment I beheld him, my heart was irrevocably gone.”
Buy Northanger Abby:
Sense and Sensibility
“The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!”
“That Marianne found her own happiness in forming his, was equally the persuasion and delight of each observing friend.”
“It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy — it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.”
“If I could but know his heart, everything would become easy.”
“Yes, I found myself, by insensible degrees, sincerely fond of her; and the happiest hours of my life were what I spent with her.”
“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.”
“To love is to burn, to be on fire.”
Buy Sense and Sensibility:
Pride and Prejudice
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
“In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”
“We are all fools in love.”
“I am determined that only the deepest love will induce me into matrimony.”
“I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”
“I cannot fix on the hour, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”
“To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.”
“Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.”
“My real purpose was to see you, and to judge, if I could, whether I might ever hope to make you love me.”
“You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.”
“She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It was a union that must have been to the advantage of both: by her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved; and from his judgment, information, and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance.”
“Is not general incivility the very essence of love?”
“Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then.”
“A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”
“How little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue.”
“My heart is and always will be yours.”
“Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her.”
Buy Pride and Prejudice:
Mansfield Park
“He will make you happy, Fanny; I know he will make you happy; but you will make him everything.”
“There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time.”
“I pay very little regard to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person.”
“Marriage is indeed a maneuvering business.”
Buy Mansfield Park:
Emma
“If Ioved you less I might be able to talk about it more.”
“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.”
“Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing; but I have never been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.”
“There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.”
“Mr. Knightley, if I have not spoken, it is because I am afraid I will awaken myself from this dream.”
“It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her.”
“I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.”
“She was one of those, who, having, once begun, would be always in love.”
“Perhaps it is our imperfections that make us so perfect for one another.”
“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.”
Buy Emma:
Persuasion
“One man’s ways may be as good as another’s, but we all like our own best.”
“How quick come the reasons for approving what we like.”
“A man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart to such a woman! He ought not; he does not.”
“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever.”
“Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant.”
Buy Persuasion:
Frequently Asked Questions About Jane Austen Quotes About Love
Yes. The beloved classic author Jane Austen is known for writing 6 novels about love during her lifetime.
Jane Austen wrote 6 novels about love, in which she says many things about love. They can best be summarized in one quote from her most famous book, Pride and Prejudice: “We are all fools in love.”
In the classic book Pride and Prejudice, novelist Jane Austen says: “We are all fools in love.”
In her most popular book Pride and Prejudice, author Jane Austen writes: “We are all fools in love.”
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