Pride and Prejudice

by Jane Austen

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

“Do you not want to know who has taken it?” cried his wife impatiently. “You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.”

May this love find me :)

To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love; and very lively hopes of Mr. Bingley’s heart were entertained.

he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud; to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend.

she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous.

With a book he was regardless of time;

“He is just what a young man ought to be,” said she, “sensible, good-humoured, lively; and I never saw such happy manners!—so much ease, with such perfect good breeding!” “He is also handsome,” replied Elizabeth, “which a young man ought likewise to be, if he possibly can. His character is thereby complete.”

I give you leave to like him. You have liked many a stupider person.”

Bingley was sure of being liked wherever he appeared, Darcy was continually giving offence.

Miss Bennet he acknowledged to be pretty, but she smiled too much.

where he could think with pleasure of his own importance, and, unshackled by business, occupy himself solely in being civil to all the world.

he is such a disagreeable man, that it would be quite a misfortune to be liked by him.

I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.”

“Pride,” observed Mary, who piqued herself upon the solidity of her reflections, “is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed; that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary. 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.”

There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost every attachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all begin freely—a slight preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement.

“But if a woman is partial to a man, and does not endeavour to conceal it, he must find it out.”

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.”

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.

I was never more annoyed! The insipidity, and yet the noise—the nothingness, and yet the self-importance of all those people!

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

She is a great reader, and has no pleasure in anything else.”

A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved.”

“there is a meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable.”

I often tell my other girls they are nothing to her.

She's so ridiculous...

In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and unvarying society.” “But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever.”

“My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them—by which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents.”

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

The power of doing anything with quickness is always prized much by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance.

Arguments are too much like disputes.

should look at her because he disliked her, was still more strange. She could only imagine, however, at last that she drew his notice because there was something more wrong and reprehensible, according to his ideas of right, than in any other person present.

Miss Bingley, however, was incapable of disappointing Mr. Darcy in anything,

I hope I never ridicule what is wise and good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.

pride—where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation.”

I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor their offences 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.”

“There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil—a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.”

her jealousy and dislike of one sister much exceeded her affection for the other.

In his library he had been always sure of leisure and tranquillity;

What could be the meaning of it? It was impossible to imagine; it was impossible not to long to know.

the commonest, dullest, most threadbare topic might be rendered interesting by the skill of the speaker.

The world is blinded by his fortune and consequence, or frightened by his high and imposing manners, and sees him only as he chooses to be seen.”

Society, I own, is necessary to me. I have been a disappointed man, and my spirits will not bear solitude.

What can have induced him to behave so cruelly?” “A thorough, determined dislike of me—a dislike which I cannot but attribute in some measure to jealousy.

almost all his actions may be traced to pride; and pride had often been his best friend. It has connected him nearer with virtue than with any other feeling.

“While I can have my mornings to myself,” said she, “it is enough—I think it is no sacrifice to join occasionally in evening engagements. Society has claims on us all; and I profess myself one of those who consider intervals of recreation and amusement as desirable for everybody.”

The moment of her release from him was ecstasy.

“Heaven forbid! That would be the greatest misfortune of all! To find a man agreeable whom one is determined to hate! Do not wish me such an evil.”

He smiled, and assured her that whatever she wished him to say should be said.

We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the eclat of a proverb.”

Almost as soon as I entered the house, I singled you out as the companion of my future life.

And now nothing remains for me but to assure you in the most animated language of the violence of my affection.