Pride and Prejudice Quotes
“A lady's imagination is very rapid;
it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”
“I declare after all there is no
enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book!
-- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an
excellent library.”
“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.”
“It is a truth universally acknowledged
that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
“There are few people whom I really
love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the
more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the
inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be
placed on the appearance of merit or sense.”
“Angry people are not always wise.”
“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.”
“I cannot fix on the hour, or the
spot, 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.”
“What are men to rocks and
mountains?”
“For what do we live, but to make
sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?”
“I could easily forgive his pride,
if he had not mortified mine.”
“There is a stubbornness about me that never
can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at
every attempt to intimidate me.”
“I must learn to be content with
being happier than I deserve.”
“I have not the pleasure of
understanding you.”
“Laugh as much as you choose, but
you will not laugh me out of my opinion.”
“From the very beginning— from the
first moment, I may almost say— of my acquaintance with you, your manners,
impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your
selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork
of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike;
and 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.”
“To be fond of dancing was a certain
step towards falling in love”
“We all know him to be a proud,
unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him.”
“You must learn some of my
philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”
“I am the happiest creature in the
world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice.
I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh.”
“I have faults enough, but they are
not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I
believe, too little yielding— certainly too little for the convenience of the
world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of other so soon as I ought, nor
their offenses against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every
attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good
opinion once lost, is lost forever.”
“A girl likes to be crossed a little
in love now and then.
It is something to think of”
It is something to think of”
“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 forever.”
“An unhappy alternative is before
you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents.
Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I
will never see you again if you do.”
“Till this moment I never knew
myself.”
“He is a gentleman, and I am a
gentleman's daughter. So far we are equal.”
“Mary wished to say something very
sensible, but knew not how.”
“I have been a selfish being all my
life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught what was
right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles,
but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son (for
many years an only child), I was spoilt by my parents, who, though good
themselves (my father, particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable),
allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing; to care
for none beyond my own family circle; to think meanly of all the rest of the
world; to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with
my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have
been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You
taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was
properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me
how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being
pleased.”
“I am excessively diverted.”
“There is, I believe, in every
disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not
even the best education can overcome."
"And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody."
"And yours," he replied with a smile, "is willfully to misunderstand them.”
"And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody."
"And yours," he replied with a smile, "is willfully to misunderstand them.”
“It's been many years since I had
such an exemplary vegetable.”
“Her heart did whisper that he had
done it for her.”
“She is tolerable, but not handsome
enough to tempt me, and I am in no humor at present to give consequence to
young ladies who are slighted by other men.”
“Oh, Lizzy! Do anything rather than
marry without affection.”
“Occupied in observing Mr. Bingley’s
attentions to her sister, Elizabeth was far from suspecting that she was
herself becoming an object of some interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr.
Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty: he had looked at her
without admiration at the ball; and when they next met, he looked at her only
to criticise. But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends
that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was
rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes.
To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had
detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her
form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in
spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable
world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. Of this she was perfectly
unaware: to her he was only the man who made himself agreeable nowhere, and who
had not thought her handsome enough to dance with.”
“My good opinion once lost is lost
forever.”
“I am only resolved to act in that
manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without
reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.”
“Nobody can tell what I suffer! But
it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied.”
“They were within twenty yards of
each other, and so abrupt was his appearance, that it was impossible to avoid
his sight. Their eyes instantly met, and the cheeks of each were overspread
with the deepest blush. He absolutely started, and for a moment seemed
immoveable from surprise; but shortly recovering himself, advanced towards the
party, and spoke to Elizabeth, if not in terms of perfect composure, at least
of perfect civility.”
“One cannot be always laughing at a
man without now and then stumbling on something witty.”
“Follies and nonsense, whims and
inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.”
“From all that I can collect by your
manner of talking, you must be two of the silliest girls in the country. I have
suspected it some time, but I am now convinced.”
“Do not give way to useless alarm;
though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look
on it as certain.”
“Had I been in love, I could not
have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.”
“Could there be finer symptoms? Is
not general incivility the very essence of love?”
“But people themselves alter so much, that there is something
new to be observed in them forever.”
“The distance is nothing when one
has a motive.”
“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?”
“How despicably I have acted!"
she cried; "I, who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have
valued myself on my abilities! Who have often disdained the generous candour of
my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameable mistrust! How
humiliating is this discovery! Yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love,
I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my
folly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the
other, on the very beginning of our aquaintance, I have courted prepossession
and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this
moment I never knew myself.”
“I might as well enquire,” replied
she, “why with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to
tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even
against your character?”
Man, I love this story. Jane's read on human emotions and the relationships in a family and between men and women still hold up. Plus she was devilishly funny. And I can't think of any higher praise for an author of a classic.
