Pride and Prejudice Money Quotes

single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife - Jane Austen quote

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

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 1. The opening sentence of Jane Austen’s comedy of manners is without question one of the most famous and best known first lines in literature. Its masterful ironic style and humorous tone are foreshadowing of the sparkling humor and irony to be found throughout the classic novel. It introduces us to four important themes: marriage, love, money and class. The satirical view Austin takes of her characters and of marriage in the Regency period is established. The memorable first line also signals the classic novel’s treatment of men as commodities and prized possessions for single women. It is a good example of verbal irony as women in the late 18th century were far more dependent on their husbands, than vice versa. In fact rich bachelors Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy are not at all searching for a wife, the situation is totally opposite, as we very quickly learn. Austen was only 21 years old when she wrote Pride and Prejudice. It is one of six major novels which earns her a deserved reputation as master ironist and supreme pioneer of comedy. First published anonymously in 1813 when it wasn’t deemed ladylike to pursue a career in writing, it remains one of the world’s most popular novels more than two hundred years later.
A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year - Mrs. Bennet

A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 1. Mrs. Bennet defines Charles Bingley as "a fine thing for our girls." It is the only thing on her mind when she learns of their new rich and single neighbor. To her Bingley is a commodity or piece of property: a potential husband to be snared for one of her five single daughters! It seems that no self-respecting wealthy bachelor is safe from the husband-hunting Mrs. Bennet!
Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room - Pride and Prejudice

Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and 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.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 3. This describes the reaction to Fitzwilliam Darcy and his friend Charles Bingley at the Meryton ball, attended by the Bennet sisters and their mother. Aside from Darcy’s handsome looks, what makes a big impression on the ballgoers is that he is wealthy and worth ten thousand pounds a year. But very quickly they make up their minds from Darcy’s manner that he is insufferably proud and behaves as if he is superior to those around him. From the start they develop a dislike of and a prejudice against him. He is "unworthy" to be compared to his friend Charles Bingley, they decide. Darcy is believed to be partly based on Irish politician and lawyer Thomas Lefroy, who had a flirtation and spent some time with Jane Austen during a break from studying law. Austen’s lack of wealth is believed to have played a part in the pair not ending up together. After Lefroy died in 1869 one of his nephews wrote to Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen Leigh to say: "My late venerable uncle…said in so many words that he was in love with her, although he qualified his confession by saying it was a boyish love."
Bingley sisters in Pride and Prejudice

They were in fact very fine ladies; not deficient in good humour when they were pleased, nor in the power of being agreeable where they chose it, but proud and conceited. They were rather handsome, had been educated in one of the first private seminaries in town, had a fortune of twenty thousand pounds, were in the habit of spending more than they ought, and of associating with people of rank, and were therefore in every respect entitled to think well of themselves, and meanly of others. They were of a respectable family in the north of England; a circumstance more deeply impressed on their memories than that their brother’s fortune and their own had been acquired by trade.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 4. The narrator paints us a picture of the Bingley sisters Caroline and Louisa. We learn that they are rich, proud, conceited and like to associate with other people of equally high rank. We are told, with Austen’s penchant for irony, that they are "in every respect entitled to think well of themselves, and meanly of others" – which of course they are not entitled to.

"His pride," said Miss Lucas, "does not offend me so much as pride often does, because there is an excuse for it. One cannot wonder that so very fine a young man, with family, fortune, everything in his favour, should think highly of himself. If I may so express it, he has a right to be proud."
"That is very true," replied Elizabeth, "and I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 5. Charlotte Lucas and Elizabeth are discussing Mr. Darcy’s pride. Charlotte thinks that if you have everything going for you in life, including family and fortune, you have a right to be proud. However, Elizabeth accuses Darcy of mortifying her pride after overhearing him saying she was not "handsome enough."
Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice

I have been so fortunate as to be distinguished by the patronage of the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh…whose bounty and beneficence has preferred me to the valuable rectory of this parish, where it shall be my earnest endeavour to demean myself with grateful respect towards her Ladyship.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 13. Newly ordained clergyman Mr. Collins begins his letter to Mr. Bennet in groveling terms about his patron Lady Catherine de Bourgh. In Collins we see Jane Austen’s genius for comic satire at its best. He is presented as a ridiculous churchman more interested in living well in his "valuable" new position and kowtowing to his aristocratic benefactor, than in devoting his life to spiritual matters.

He begged to know to which of his fair cousins, the excellence of its cookery was owing. But here he was set right by Mrs. Bennet, who assured him with some asperity that they were very well able to keep a good cook, and that her daughters had nothing to do in the kitchen.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 13. An offended Mrs. Bennet puts Mr. Collins right when he asks which of her daughters was responsible for the excellent cooking. She interprets this as suggesting they were of the lower class and couldn’t afford a cook.

Having now a good house and a very sufficient income, he intended to marry…he meant to choose one of the daughters, if he found them as handsome and amiable as they were represented by common report. This was his plan of amends – of atonement – for inheriting their father’s estate; and he thought it an excellent one, full of eligibility and suitableness, and excessively generous and disinterested on his own part.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 15. At a time when women’s legal access to property in England was limited, Mr. Collins is due to inherit Longbourn on the death of Mr. Bennet. Now that he has a good income and house, he decides that it is time to marry. Seeing himself as a fountain of generosity and kindness, he decides to choose one of the Bennet daughters to make amends to the family over the loss of their home. Austen is an expert at writing ironic statements and the tone throughout this passage is without doubt ironic, for Collins admires himself for sharing with one of the Bennet girls the wealth that he took from them in the first place. The description of the puffed-up clergyman celebrating his high-mindedness marks Austen out as the supreme satirist. Mr. Collins has no self-awareness of how ridiculous he is.

Her manners were dictatorial and insolent. She has the reputation of being remarkably sensible and clever; but I rather believe she derives part of her abilities from her rank and fortune, part from her authoritative manner, and the rest from the pride of her nephew, who chooses that every one connected with him should have an understanding of the first class.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 16. Charles Bingley is speaking to Elizabeth here about Lady Catherine. He sums up her character extremely accurately. There are many examples in the novel of her being authoritative and dictatorial with the other characters and using her rank and wealth to tell others what to do.

"They have both," said she, "been deceived, I dare say, in some way or other, of which we can form no idea. Interested people have perhaps misrepresented each to the other. It is, in short, impossible for us to conjecture the causes or circumstances which may have alienated them, without actual blame on either side."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 17. Jane says this to Elizabeth, when she hears from her sister of George Wickham’s accusations about Darcy. Wickham alleges that Darcy used a loophole in a will to stop Wickham getting money left him by Darcy’s father to pursue a career in the ministry. However, Jane prefers to keep an open mind and suggests that they both have been deceived. She turns out to be right about Darcy. But she fails to see the true character of Wickham, who is an unprincipled liar and deceiver.

My reasons for marrying are, first, that I think it a right thing for every clergyman in easy circumstances (like myself) to set the example of matrimony in his parish; secondly, that I am convinced that it will add very greatly to my happiness; and thirdly – which perhaps I ought to have mentioned earlier, that it is the particular advice and recommendation of the very noble lady whom I have the honour of calling patroness…she said, "Mr. Collins, you must marry. A clergyman like you must marry. Choose properly, choose a gentlewoman for my sake; and for your own, let her be an active, useful sort of person, not brought up high, but able to make a small income go a good way"…But the fact is, that being, as I am, to inherit this estate after the death of your honoured father (who, however, may live many years longer), I could not satisfy myself without resolving to choose a wife from among his daughters, that the loss to them might be as little as possible, when the melancholy event takes place – which, however, as I have already said, may not be for several years. This has been my motive, my fair cousin, and I flatter myself it will not sink me in your esteem. And now nothing remains for me but to assure you in the most animated language of the violence of my affection.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 19. Mr. Collins’s lack of self-awareness is astonishing as he corners an obviously uninterested Elizabeth to propose. Setting out his reasons for wanting to marry her, there is not one mention of love and it is mostly about why it would be good for him. He believes that he should marry because it sets a good example for a clergyman, it will add to his happiness, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh has told him to marry a "useful sort of person…able to make a small income go a good way." For good measure he also mentions that since he is to inherit Mr. Bennet’s estate, he would like to minimize the family’s loss by marrying one of his daughters. Finally with great irony he laughably assures Elizabeth of his "violence of my affection" for her. Austen is mocking Mr. Collins here. She is using him as a satirical figure to comment on loveless marriages, where people wed for all kinds of ridiculous reasons other than love.

In spite of your manifold attractions, it is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made to you. Your portion is unhappily so small that it will in all likelihood undo the effects of your loveliness and amiable qualifications.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 19. Mr. Collin’s proposal to Elizabeth is probably the most famous and worst marriage proposal in literature. And this passage would be hard to surpass for the top prize for the worst chat-up line ever! When Elizabeth politely turns him down, Mr. Collins comes back to tell her that she may never get another marriage offer – he, in effect, is her last chance saloon! He demeans her by insulting her (and all women) that her income is so little she will never get another chance of winning a husband. And this is how Mr. Collins asks for a woman’s hand in marriage? What arrogance and vanity! Mr. Collins obviously never went to charm school, he never felt the need to as he thinks so highly of himself!

Indeed, Jane, you ought to believe me. No one who has ever seen you together can doubt his affection. Miss Bingley, I am sure, cannot. She is not such a simpleton. Could she have seen half as much love in Mr. Darcy for herself, she would have ordered her wedding clothes. But the case is this: We are not rich enough or grand enough for them.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 21. Elizabeth attempts to convince her sister Jane that Charles Bingley really loves her. She tells her that Caroline Bingley is trying to keep them apart because the Bennets are not wealthy enough or of high enough class.

Mr. Collins, to be sure, was neither sensible nor agreeable; his society was irksome, and his attachment to her must be imaginary. But still he would be her husband. Without thinking highly either of men or matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 22. Charlotte Lucas has a very business-like attitude to marriage. Here she reflects on her marriage of convenience to Mr. Collins. While Elizabeth turned Collins’s proposal down, Charlotte accepts when he proposes to her. She is aware that he is not husband of the year material, being annoying and disagreeable. But she had always wanted to marry, as it was the only way educated women of small income could be provided for. Marriages like this, born not out of love but from the benefits it bestowed on both partners, were commonplace in Jane Austen’s time. Austen is using Charlotte to satirize how marriage was a necessary career move for many women of small means at the time.

My dear Lizzy, do not give way to such feelings as these. They will ruin your happiness. You do not make allowance enough for difference of situation and temper. Consider Mr. Collins’s respectability, and Charlotte’s steady, prudent character. Remember that she is one of a large family; that as to fortune, it is a most eligible match; and be ready to believe, for everybody’s sake, that she may feel something like regard and esteem for our cousin.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 24. Jane says to Elizabeth, when her sister expresses disbelief at her friend Charlotte entering a loveless marriage with Mr. Collins. Jane, who likes to see the good in everyone and everything, says that Mr. Collins is respectable and Charlotte sensible. From the point of view of Charlotte’s financial security it is a good match, she says.

They may wish many things besides his happiness; they may wish his increase of wealth and consequence; they may wish him to marry a girl who has all the importance of money, great connections, and pride.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 24. Elizabeth bluntly tells Jane that she believes the Bingley sisters played a role in manipulating their brother Charles to apparently abandon Jane. And their motivation, she suggests, was that they may wish him to marry someone with money and better social position.

Seriously, I would have you be on your guard. Do not involve yourself, or endeavour to involve him in an affection which the want of fortune would make so very imprudent. I have nothing to say against him; he is a most interesting young man; and if he had the fortune he ought to have, I should think you could not do better. But as it is, you must not let your fancy run away with you. You have sense, and we all expect you to use it.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 26. Mrs. Gardiner speaks to Elizabeth over her attraction to George Wickham and warns her against marrying him. She points out that his lack of money makes him an unsuitable match. The Bennets’ economic situation – Longbourn is entailed to male heirs and will pass out of family hands on the death of Mr. Bennet – puts pressure on them to marry someone who is wealthy.

What is the difference in matrimonial affairs, between the mercenary and the prudent move? What does discretion end, and avarice begin?

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 27. Elizabeth says this to Mrs. Gardiner, when she labels George Wickham mercenary because he dropped Elizabeth for Miss King who has inherited ten thousand pounds. How does one tell the difference between the mercenary and the prudent and the discreet and the avaricious when it comes to marital affairs, she asks? Elizabeth is calling out the hypocrisy of her aunt warning her the previous Christmas against marrying Wickham because of "want of fortune."

In town I believe he chiefly lived, but his studying the law was a mere pretence, and being now free from all restraint, his life was a life of idleness and dissipation.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 35. Darcy reveals in a letter to Elizabeth the truth about George Wickham’s slanderous and deceitful story to her that Darcy cheated him of an inheritance. Wickham resigned his church ministry studies in exchange for money for law school, said Darcy. But instead of using the money to attend law school, he squandered it on idleness and pleasure. When the money was gone, he asked Darcy for more, and when Darcy refused he was "violent in his abuse of me."

"Look here, I have bought this bonnet. I do not think it is very pretty; but I thought I might as well buy it as not. I shall pull it to pieces as soon as I get home, and see if I can make it up any better."
And when her sisters abused it as ugly, she added, with perfect unconcern, "Oh! but there were two or three much uglier in the shop; and when I have bought some prettier-coloured satin to trim it with fresh, I think it will be very tolerable. Besides, it will not much signify what one wears this summer, after the -shire have left Meryton, and they are going in a fortnight."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 39. Lydia is careless and foolish with money and how she spends it. She and Kitty are meant to treat Jane and Elizabeth to lunch but instead Lydia buys a new bonnet in a haberdashery, even though her sisters say it is is ugly. Lydia then has to borrow from her sisters for lunch.

All Meryton seemed striving to blacken the man who, but three months before, had been almost an angel of light. He was declared to be in debt to every tradesman in the place, and his intrigues, all honoured with the title of seduction, had been extended into every tradesman’s family. Everybody declared that he was the wickedest young man in the world; and everybody began to find out, that they had always distrusted the appearance of his goodness.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 48. The gossip machine cranks into top gear in Meryton after Wickham runs away with Lydia. In the residents’ crosshairs are the one-time "angel of light" who is now branded the "wickedest young man in the world" and credited with seducing someone in "every tradesman’s family." It’s discovered too that he owes a lot of money to people in the locality. There is ironic description in this passage. You have the metaphorical description of Wickham as "almost an angel of light," which conjures up the image of Lucifer (meaning light-bearing in Latin). Also Wickham’s intrigues are said to be "honoured" with the "title of seduction."

Yes, yes they must marry. There is nothing else to be done. But there are two things that I want every much to know – one is, how much money your uncle has laid down, to bring it about; and the other is, how I am ever to pay him.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 49. Mr. Bennet responds to Mr. Gardiner’s letter stating that Wickham and Lydia have been persuaded to marry if Wickham has his debts paid and receives a small yearly stipend. Mr. Bennet suspects that Mr. Gardiner has already paid Wickham a great deal of his own money and he dislikes the idea of being indebted to his brother-in-law. Wickham is being paid to wed Lydia.

Well! I am so happy! In a short time I shall have a daughter married. Mrs. Wickham! – how well it sounds! And she was only sixteen last June.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 49. After her previous regrets and lamentations about Lydia’s elopement and hurling invectives against the "villainous" Wickham, Mrs. Bennet is now in raptures over her daughter marrying him. Mrs. Bennet flip flops a lot between ecstacy over her schemes to get husbands for her daughters and lamentations about her personal suffering when these don’t work. After receiving her brother Mr. Gardiner’s letter that Lydia is to be wed to Wickham and her reputation saved, Mrs. Bennet suddenly reverses her opinion on the character of the fortune-hunting Wickham. Now he is fit to be her son-in-law. Here again the shallow, foolish, tiresome and vacuous Mrs. Bennet makes us laugh – but at her! The passage is another example of Austen’s fine use of ironic humor. Mr. Gardiner’s letter explains that Wickham will wed Lydia if Mr. Bennet pays Wickham a small sum of money annually to Wickham – the Bennets suspect that Mr. Gardiner has also already paid Wickham a good deal. The fuller quote of Mrs. Bennet’s reaction to this news from her brother: "It is all very right; who should do it but her own uncle? If he had not had a family of his own, I and my children must have had all his money, you know; and it is the first time we have ever had anything from him, except a few presents. Well! I am so happy! In a short time I shall have a daughter married. Mrs. Wickham! How well it sounds!"

Wickham’s affection for Lydia was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it – not equal to Lydia’s for him. She had scarcely needed her present observation to be satisfied, from the reason of things, that their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love rather than by his; and she would have wondered why, without violently caring for her, he chose to elope with her at all, had she not felt certain that his flight was rendered necessary by distress of circumstances; and if that were the case, he was not the young man to resist an opportunity of having a companion.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 51. Here Elizabeth is thinking about the elopment of Wickham and Lydia. She figures out that Wickham did not elope and marry Lydia out of true love but because of "distress of circumstances" (he owed a lot of money locally) and "an opportunity of having a companion" (he is a serial sexual predator). The elopement was also driven by Lydia’s strong infatuation for Wickham.

The motive professed was his conviction of its being owing to himself that Wickham’s worthlessness had not been so well known as to make it impossible for any young woman of character to love or confide in him. He generously imputed the whole to his mistaken pride, and confessed that he had before thought it beneath him to lay his private actions open to the world. His character was to speak for itself. He called it, therefore, his duty to step forward, and endeavour to remedy an evil which had been brought on by himself. If he had another motive, I am sure it would never disgrace him.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 52. Mrs. Gardiner writes a long letter to Elizabeth detailing how Darcy effectively negotiated and paid for the marriage of Wickham and Lydia. He traveled to London and found them, persuaded Wickham to marry Lydia by paying him a substantial sum of money and arranging a commission in the army, and got Mr. Gardiner to take credit for everything. Mrs. Gardiner’s letter speaks about Darcy’s professed motive for saving Lydia, but also hints at another motive – his love for Elizabeth.

She cared for none of her friends; she wanted no help of his; she would not hear of leaving Wickham; she was sure they should be married some time or other, and it did not much signify when. Since such were her feelings, it only remained, he thought, to secure and expedite a marriage, which, in his very first conversation with Wickham, he easily learnt had never been his design. He confessed himself obliged to leave the regiment on account of some debts of honour which were very pressing; and scrupled not to lay all the ill consequences of Lydia’s flight on her own folly alone.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 52. Mrs. Gardiner’s letter to Elizabeth tells how Darcy tracked down Lydia and Wickham in London and tried to persuade her to "quit her present disgraceful situation, and return to her friends." But he found Lydia absolutely resolved on remaining where she was. So Darcy determined to negotiate a marriage between the two, discovering that this had never been Wickham’s plan and he had left Brighton because of gambling debts there.

Mrs. Bennet had been strongly inclined to ask them to stay and dine there that day; but, though she always kept a very good table, she did not think anything less than two courses could be good enough for a man on whom she had such anxious designs, or satisfy the appetite and pride of one who had ten thousand a year.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 53. Mrs. Bennet, who is proud of her good table, invites Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy to dinner at Longbourn in a few days time. She wants to impress the man she has designs on her daughter Jane – Bingham – and also his ten thousand a year friend Darcy. That means pulling out all the stops with no less than two courses.

I will not be interrupted. Hear me in silence. My daughter and my nephew are formed for each other. They are descended, on the maternal side, from the same noble line; and, on the father’s, from respectable, honourable, and ancient – though untitled – families. Their fortune on both sides is splendid. They are destined for each other by the voice of every member of their respective houses; and what is to divide them? The upstart pretensions of a young woman without family, connections, or fortune. Is this to be endured! But it must not, shall not be.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 56. As class war breaks out between Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Elizabeth, the domineering and haughty de Bourgh spells out why an "upstart" like Elizabeth is an unsuitable match for her nephew Darcy. Pointing to her lack of money, connections and family position, she dismisses Elizabeth as simply a young women with pretensions above her station. In de Bourgh’s world, marriage doesn’t cross social and money boundaries. Lady Catherine is a quintessential rude snob with no self-awareness of how ill behaved she is. Austen uses satire here to ridicule the extreme class consciousness in English society at the time.
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