Where an opinion is general, it is usually correct.

Meaning of the quote

When many people have the same opinion or belief, it is often accurate or true. This is because when a large group of people agree on something, it is more likely to be correct than if just a few people have that opinion. The more people who think the same way, the more likely that opinion is to be right.

About Jane Austen

Jane Austen was an English novelist who lived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She is best known for her six novels, which offer insightful social commentary and critiques of the British landed gentry. Her works have gained widespread acclaim over the years and have inspired numerous film adaptations.

More about the author

More quotes from Jane Austen

The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

They are much to be pitied who have not been given a taste for nature early in life.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Respect for right conduct is felt by every body.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

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

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Where an opinion is general, it is usually correct.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

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

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

I am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Oh! do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor. Which is one very strong argument in favor of matrimony.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Where youth and diffidence are united, it requires uncommon steadiness of reason to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl in the world.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

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

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

We do not look in our great cities for our best morality.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

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

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

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

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Dress is at all times a frivolous distinction, and excessive solicitude about it often destroys its own aim.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

An artist cannot do anything slovenly.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

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

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged; no harm can be done.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

My sore throats are always worse than anyone’s.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Nobody minds having what is too good for them.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

One man’s ways may be as good as another’s, but we all like our own best.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain for the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

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

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Those who do not complain are never pitied.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

One man’s style must not be the rule of another’s.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

From politics, it was an easy step to silence.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

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.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

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.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

There is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

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

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

It is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are they the result of previous study?

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

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

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

If things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

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

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

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

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

What wild imaginations one forms where dear self is concerned! How sure to be mistaken!

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Good-humoured, unaffected girls, will not do for a man who has been used to sensible women. They are two distinct orders of being.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

What is right to be done cannot be done too soon.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

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

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

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

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)

Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a something of shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the latter.

Jane Austen

English novelist (1775-1817)