Jane Austen Quotes

In our pursuit of the things of this world, we usually prevent enjoyment, by expectation; we anticipate our own happiness, and eat out the heart and sweetness of worldly pleasures, by delightful forethoughts of them; so that when we come to possess them, they do not answer the expectation, nor satisfy the desires which were raised about them, and they vanish into nothing.

I always looked for a man to rescue me and bring me happiness. I bought into that myth, of course, and looked for my own Prince Charming.

The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.

Samuel Johnson called it the vanity of human wishes, and Buddhists talk about the endless cycle of desire. Social psychologists say we get trapped on a hedonic treadmill. What they all mean is that we wish, plan and work for things that we think will make us happy, but when we finally get them, we aren't nearly as happy as we thought we'd be.

I'm actually not a particularly negative person, but I feel like most things are better when they're not actualized. The motivation that comes from wanting something is so much more driving of people than actually getting it.

False expectations take away joy.

There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

Now that we have everything we need, we discover that there is almost nothing that we have that we want

The happiness at getting what you want is not usually commensurate with the worry leading up to it.

What does not satisfy when we find it, was not the thing we were desiring.

That in all these worldly Things, that a Man pursues with the greatest Eagerness and Intention of Mind imaginable, he finds not half the Pleasure in the actual Possession of them, that he proposed to himself in the Expectation.

Pleasures seem solid in their pursuit; but are mere clouds in the enjoyment.

The events we most desire do not happen; or, if they do, it is neither in the time nor in the circumstances when they would have given us extreme pleasure.

He who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectation, or has any other effect than that of producing a moral sentence or peevish exclamation.

When you come to expect humor of people, you will never get it.

A mountain in labour shouted so loud that everyone, summoned by the noise, ran up expecting that she would be delivered of a city bigger than Paris; she brought forth a mouse.

Some men have sighed over the abduction of their wives, but many more have sighed because no one wanted to abduct theirs.

Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.

Fun... human nature... does no one any harm... Regular as clockwork the old excuses came back into the alert, sad and dissatisfied brain--nothing ever matched the deep excitement of the regular desire. Men always failed you when it came to the act. She might just as well have been to the pictures.

Not everything you wanted, deep inside, worked out.

The worst thing you can do to a man is to tell him he can have what he wants.

Count not thyself to have found true peace, if thou hast felt no grief; nor that then all is well if thou hast no adversary; nor that this is perfect, if all things fall out according to thy desire.

Oh, I'll buy fourteen dresses and build a road and name it after myself and try one of everything at Palsson's." Though I don't quite look up, I can still feel his gaze on me. It's a heavy thing, this look of his. He says," What's the real answer?

We never do what we wish when we wish it, and when we desire a thing earnestly, and it does arrive, that or we are changed, so that we slide from the summit of our wishes and find ourselves where we were.