Pride and Prejudice Quotes

"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."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 5. The girls are discussing Mr. Darcy and what they perceive to be his pride. Mary Bennet, who likes to philosophize and moralize, distinguishes between pride and vanity. She explains that pride is more about our opinion of ourselves and vanity how we would have others think of us. Both are major themes in the novel, and are evident in the characters of Elizabeth, Mr. Collins, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, as well as Mr. Darcy. Mary is showing off here, and so ironically displays the pride and vanity that she is preaching about in others.

It is sometimes a disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him; and it will then be but poor consolation to believe the world equally in the dark. 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. In nine cases out of ten a women had better show more affection than she feels.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 6. Charlotte has a very pragmatic view of love, born of necessity from the patriarchal society that the women of the novel live in. If a woman remains single, especially one of modest means, then she could face an uncertain financial future. So Charlotte’s philosophy on love is that a woman must show more affection than she feels and use manipulation to get a husband. Charlotte is speaking to Elizabeth here about her sister Jane’s attraction to Charles Bingley, advising that Jane should not conceal her affection for Bingley but display it more openly to him.

When she is secure of him, there will be leisure for falling in love as much as she chooses.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 6. Charlotte says this to Elizabeth, when advising how Jane should behave if she wishes to end up being married to Charles Bingley. Charlotte believes you don’t need to love someone in order to marry them. She feels Jane is being too reserved and should simply work at winning Bingley’s attention and getting him to marry her. There will be plenty of time for love after that, as much as she chooses. This is foreshadowing Charlotte’s later decision to marry, not for love, but for security and a home.

"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."
"You make me laugh, Charlotte; but it is not sound. You know it is not sound, and that you would never act in this way yourself."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 6. Charlotte Lucas and Elizabeth discuss the idea of Jane marrying Charles Bingley, and on the subject of marriage the two women disagree. As becomes apparent later when she weds, Charlotte has a pragmatic view of marriage, it is a business transaction to enable a woman have financial security and comfort and status. During this exchange with Elizabeth, she is dismissive of the idea of marriage being about love and intimacy and getting to know the other person. Happiness in marriage is a roll of the dice, she believes, and it’s better to know as little as possible about the other’s faults beforehand. Elizabeth disagrees and laughs off what Charlotte says, predicting that her friend would never act in this way herself. Later events prove Elizabeth wrong in this, an example of how poor Elizabeth’s judgment of other people is sometimes. Charlotte lack of response to Elizabeth’s comment is forecasting of the transactional and loveless marriage she will enter with Mr. Collins.

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 hardly had 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.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 6. Elizabeth may not have been handsome enough for Mr. Darcy to dance with at the Meryton ball, where he found her appearance just "tolerable." But now he sees Elizabeth in a new light as she and Jane spend more time with the residents of Netherfield. Observing Elizabeth close up, Darcy develops an attraction for her, despite having said earlier that she lacked the manners of his class. Now he finds himself drawn to her intelligent expression, her beautiful dark eyes, her pleasing figure and her playful personality. Darcy is mortified by his discovery, because it injures his pride – at the Meryton assembly he was "above his company, and above being pleased." Elizabeth is fully aware of his attentions, but to her he is still the disagreeable man who didn’t think she was attractive enough to dance with.

Mary had neither genius nor taste; and though vanity had given her application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited manner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she had reached.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 6. The narrator describes Mary, the plainest of the Bennet sisters, as she plays the piano at Netherfield. Austen is unsparing in her depiction of Mary: no genius, no taste, vain and conceited. It’s no surprise that Mary’s musical performance in showing off by playing a long concerto is a lot less popular than Elizabeth’s, even though she plays twice as well.

"There is nothing like dancing after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished society."
"Certainly, sir; and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst the less polished societies of the world. Every savage can dance."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 6. Sir William Lucas tries to engage Mr. Darcy about the pleasures and popularity of dancing. Sir William holds it up as one of the great examples of civilized society. But Darcy shows his dislike for the practice by saying sarcastically that "every savage can dance." Yet moments later Darcy unexpectedly changes his tune and wishes to dance with Elizabeth – this is an example of situational irony. Elizabeth refuses him point blank. She in turn uses verbal irony when she says, meaning the opposite: "Mr. Darcy is all politeness."
A pair of fine eyes - Darcy on Elizabeth

"I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow."
Miss Bingley immediately fixated her eyes on his face, and desired he would tell her what lady had the credit of inspiring such reflections. Mr. Darcy replied with great intrepedity:
"Miss Elizabeth Bennet."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 6. Mr. Darcy seems lost in thought at a party in the Lucas house and Caroline Bingley suggests that he must be thinking how insufferable it is to spend evenings with such insipid and self-important people. But Darcy shocks her with his response, admitting that he has been thinking about Elizabeth Bennet’s fine eyes. Caroline sees Elizabeth as her rival for Darcy’s affections and is astonished by Darcy’s revelation.
A lady's imagination is very rapid - Darcy in Pride and Prejudice

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

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 6. This is Mr. Darcy’s comeback to Caroline Bingley, who is astonished that Elizabeth Bennet is his "favourite" and jokingly asks Darcy when the wedding is to be. Darcy’s tongue-in-cheek response keeps up the joke, but it also contains a lot of truth. For marriage is a big obsession with the female characters in the novel and is one of its main themes.
You will have a charming mother-in-law - Pride and Prejudice

You will have a charming mother-in-law, and of course she will always be at Pemberley with you.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 6. Jealous because Mr. Darcy has expressed admiration for Elizabeth Bennet’s "fine eyes," Caroline Bingley tries to come up with something insulting to say about Elizabeth and her family. She sarcastically suggests that Darcy can look forward to sharing lots of time at his grand Pemberley estate with his new mother-in-law – the tiresome and foolish Mrs. Bennet. Family is an important theme in the novel, and while Elizabeth is a lively and intelligent woman, not all members of her family are as attractive as her.

I must so far differ from you as to think our two youngest daughters uncommonly foolish.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 7. Disagreeing with his wife, Mr. Bennet describes his youngest daughters Kitty and Lydia as "uncommonly foolish" after branding them "two of the silliest girls in the country" moments before. He appears to think that they are spending too much time around the soldiers from the militia regiment recently arrived in the neighborhood. But the irony is that he never insists that they stop. Mr. Bennet enjoys criticizing and teasing his daughters, but never actually tries to correct their behavior. This is also foreshadowing that his youngest daughters’ foolishness will get one of them – Lydia – involved in trouble and scandal later.

Jane was therefore obliged to go on horseback, and her mother attended her to the door with many cheerful prognostics of a bad day. Her hopes were answered; Jane had not been gone long before it rained hard. Her sisters were uneasy for her, but her mother was delighted. The rain continued the whole evening without intermission; Jane certainly could not come back.
"This was a lucky idea of mine, indeed!" said Mrs. Bennet more than once, as if the credit of making it rain were all her own.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 7. Mrs. Bennet is obsessed with marrying off her daughters and has little regard for their happiness or welfare. Here she schemes for Jane to travel by horseback rather than carriage to Charles Bingley’s Netherfield home, so that she will have to stay overnight. Mrs. Bennet knows that rain is expected, and when Jane is caught our in it she falls quite ill. Parents are meant to look out for the welfare of their children, but Mrs. Bennet’s harmful parenting leaves a lot to be desired.

If your daughter should have a dangerous fit of illness – if she should die, it would be a comfort to know that it was all in pursuit of Mr. Bingley, and under your orders.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 7. Mr. Bennet teases Mrs. Bennet with one of his famous tongue-in-cheek comments about her placing Jane in danger through her obsession with getting her daughter married. This is after Elizabeth reads a note from Jane in Bingley’s Netherfield Park to say that she is ill with a sore throat and headache after being out in the storm. The passage is an example of Austen’s wonderful use of verbal irony – Mr. Bennet means the opposite of what he appears to be saying to Mrs. Bennet.

Oh! I am not at all afraid of her dying. People do not die of little trifling colds. She will be taken good care of. As long as she stays there, it is all very well. I would go and see her if I could have the carriage.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 7. The incorrigible Mrs. Bennet is dismissive of Jane falling ill after being out in the rain when Mrs. Bennet obliged her to travel on horseback to Netherfield. She is more concerned with Jane getting closes to Mr. Bingley than she is with her daughter’s health. Mrs. Bennet wouldn’t win parent of the year award.

She was shown into the breakfast-parlour, where all but Jane were assembled, and where her appearance created a great deal of surprise. That she should have walked three miles so early in the day, in such dirty weather, and by herself, was almost incredible to Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley; and Elizabeth was convinced that they held her in contempt for it. She was received, however, very politely by them; and in their brother’s manners there was something better than politeness; there was good humour and kindness. Mr. Darcy said very little, and Mr. Hurst nothing at all. The former was divided between admiration of the brilliancy which exercise had given to her complexion, and doubt as to the occasion’s justifying her coming so far alone. The latter was thinking only of his breakfast.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 7. Concerned for her ill sister Jane and having no carriage, Elizabeth walks alone through three miles of muddy fields to Netherfield. Elizabeth doesn’t fit the image of the typical 18th century woman, she is headstrong and independent-minded and likes to break gender and class conventions. She suspects – and turns out to be right – that the Bingley sisters Caroline and Louisa are not impressed by her behavior and hold her in contempt. But Mr. Darcy feels "admiration" for Elizabeth and the brilliant complexion the exercise has given her, though he doubts her wisdom is traveling so far alone.

To walk three miles, or four miles, or five miles, or whatever it is, above her ankles in dirt, and alone, quite alone! what could she mean by it? It seems to me to show an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country-town indifference to decorum.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 8. Elizabeth’s independence of spirit is what makes her a hero to many Jane Austen readers, and these include women the world over today. But Caroline Bingley, one of the novel’s villains who is jealous of Elizabeth, remains unimpressed. Here she berates Lizzy’s three-mile walk to see her ill sister as an exercise in conceit and lack of decorum.

"I am afraid, Mr. Darcy," observed Miss Bingley in a half whisper, "that this adventure has rather affected your admiration of her fine eyes."
"Not at all," he replied; "they were brightened by the exercise."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 8. The snobbish Caroline Bingley once again guesses wrong about Mr. Darcy’s thoughts. Aiming to puncture his admiration for Elizabeth’s "fine eyes," she makes a jibe about Elizabeth’s three-mile walk through the mud to Netherfield. But Darcy is even more admiring of Lizzy’s eyes after the exercise.

I have an excessive regard for Jane Bennet, she is really a very sweet girl, and I wish with all my heart she were well settled. But with such a father and mother, and such low connections, I am afraid there is no chance of it.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 8. Early on in the novel class conscious Caroline Bingley expresses her disapproval of any union between her brother Charles and Jane Bennet due to her low social status. She goes on after this passage to mock Jane’s lowly relations living in Cheapside.

"Miss Eliza Bennet," said Miss Bingley, "despises cards. She is a great reader, and has no pleasure in anything else."
"I deserve neither such praise nor such censure," cried Elizabeth; "I am not a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 8. Caroline Bingley jibes at Elizabeth, trying to make her look bookish, when she decides to read a book instead of joining in the card game in the Netherfield drawing room. She offensively suggests that Elizabeth has no other pleasures. But Elizabeth deflects the attack and even tries to make it appear like a compliment.

"I am astonished," said Miss Bingley, "that my father should have left so small a collection of books. – What a delightful library you have at Pemberley, Mr. Darcy!"

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 8. While Elizabeth is visiting the Bingleys to see her ill sister Jane, there is a discussion on reading, in which Caroline Bingley compliments Mr. Darcy on his excellent library at Pemberley. A love of books is something which Darcy and Elizabeth share, and one of the things that draws them closer over time. Of course Caroline has little interest in reading, but pretends she does in order to gain the attention of Darcy.

"Oh! certainly," cried his faithful assistant, "no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. 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."
"All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 8. To be an accomplished woman, according to Caroline Bingley, one must be able to sing, play music, draw, dance, have a pleasant voice and graceful walk. Quite a tall order and indicative of the high expectations for 18th century women who wanted to get on in life. Mr. Darcy chips in say there is something even more important for such a woman: improving her mind by extensive reading.

I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 8. After hearing the high standards Darcy and Caroline Bingley require for an "accomplished" woman, Elizabeth gently pokes fun at them. The quick-witted Elizabeth is not afraid to challenge Darcy, saying she is surprised that he knows any accomplished woman because of the high standards and skills he expects. Here Austen is criticizing the level of expectations from women in her society as being unreasonable and unfair.

"Elizabeth Bennet," said Miss Bingley, when the door was closed on her, "is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own; and with many men, I dare say, it succeeds. But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art."
"Undoubtedly," replied Darcy, to whom this remark was chiefly addressed, "there is meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 8. After Elizabeth and Caroline Bingley debate about what makes "an accomplished woman," Caroline attempts to damage Elizabeth’s reputation by accusing her of employing a "very mean art." She falsely claims that Elizabeth tries to make herself look good in a man’s eyes by criticizing other women – but the irony is that we all know it is Caroline who is guilty of doing that. However, Mr. Darcy’s response shows that he sees through Caroline and is far from impressed by her ruse.
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