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I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.

Jane Austen

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Jane Austen
Age: 101 †
Born: 1775
Born: December 16
Died: 1877
Died: July 24
Novelist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Steventon
Hampshire
Life
Selfishness
Selfish
Principle
Principles
Practice
Though

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it is very well worthwhile to be tormented for two or three years of one's life, for the sake of being able to read all the rest of it.
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A man . . . must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks people to leave their own fireside, and encounter such a day as this, for the sake of coming to see him. He must think himself a most agreeable fellow.
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Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch-hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Barontage there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one . . .
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You have no ambition, I well know. Your wishes are all moderate.' 'As moderate as those of the rest of the world, I believe. I wish as well as every body else to be perfectly happy, but like every body else it must be in my own way. Greatness will not make me so.
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And pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked.
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Indulge your imagination in every possible flight.
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There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.
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One cannot know what a man really is by the end of a fortnight.
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I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man.
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I have often observed that resignation is never so perfect as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its value in our eyes.
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