Pride and Prejudice Quotations Analyzed
1. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good
fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
From the very first sentence of the novel, Jane Austen plunges the reader into a world of ironic
wit in which statements are often to be taken to mean precisely the opposite of what they seem
to say on the surface. The “single man in possession of a good fortune” to whom this quotation
refers is not named by the narrator, but Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy are the two chief eligible
bachelors in the novel (excluding the undesirable Mr. Collins and the rakish Mr. Wickham). While
Mr. Bingley may in fact be in want of a wife, Mr. Darcy’s social reticence makes him an unlikely
character to be described in this way.
2. “Which do you mean?” and turning round, he looked for a moment at Elizabeth, till
catching her eye, he withdrew his own and coldly said, “She is tolerable; but not
handsome enough to tempt me; and I am in no humour at present to give consequence
to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner
and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me.”
This critically important moment in Chapter 3 sets in motion the central conflict of the novel;
namely Elizabeth’s dislike of Mr. Darcy that gradually grows into loving affection in the face of
pressure to find a suitable husband. Mr. Darcy is speaking to his friend Mr. Bingley at the dance
at Netherfield, irked that Darcy refuses to dance. While Darcy “coldly” insults Elizabeth (without
realizing that she is within earshot), he soon changes his opinion of her in the remaining
chapters of the exposition. However, the fact that he is able to overcome his prejudice does not
mean that Elizabeth is able to quickly forget this wound to her pride.
3. “Oh! you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general. You never see
a fault in anybody. All the world are good and agreeable in your eyes. I never heard
you speak ill of a human being in my life.”
As Elizabeth and Jane debrief their experience at the dance at Netherfield (Chapter 4), Elizabeth
chides her sister for her one character flaw: Jane never thinks ill of anyone. While the younger
three Bennet sisters have broadly drawn character flaws, the elder two are much more complex,
and their flaws are less cartoonish. Jane’s flaw, if it can be called a flaw, is a symptom of her
overwhelming goodness. This contrasts with Elizabeth’s critical appraisal of people which she has
inherited from her father. While Jane’s flaw does her credit, it also means that she is less useful
in her role of counselor to her younger sister when Elizabeth is undergoing her personal crisis in
the middle and second half of the novel.
4. "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."
The pedantic Mary Bennet bores everyone with whom she comes into contact, but the author
uses her to give voice to bookish pronouncements that are carefully placed signposts in the
novel. Here, as Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth, and Charlotte Lucas are discussing Mr. Darcy’s accidental
insult of Elizabeth (Chapter 5), Mary prompts the reader to consider pride and vanity. Several
important characters in the novel possess these two traits in varying intensities and
combinations, especially Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Collins, Lady Catherine, and Mr. Wickham. The
novel ultimately rewards two overly proud characters (Elizabeth and Darcy) while it satirizes the
vain characters (Lady Catherine and Mr. Collins) mercilessly.
5. "A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to
matrimony, in a moment."
In the end of Chapter 6, Mr. Darcy confesses his admiration of Elizabeth Bennet to Miss Bingley.
When Miss Bingley teases him by asking when he intends to marry Elizabeth, he scolds her with
this rebuke. While the statement is meant for Miss Bingley, it also is a message to the reader in
which the author criticizes the overly-romantic leanings of young women of her time (and some
might say all times). In the second half of the novel, Elizabeth’s gradually growing affection for
Darcy will not jump so quickly at all. The fact that Elizabeth is a fully realized, three-dimensional
character who defies this stereotype is a major ingredient in her status as one of the great
literary heroines.
6. “Jane and Elizabeth attempted to explain to her the nature of an entail. They had
often attempted it before, but it was a subject on which Mrs. Bennet was beyond the
reach of reason; and she continued to rail bitterly against the cruelty of settling an
estate away from a family of five daughters, in favor of a man whom nobody cared
anything about.”
The ridiculous Mrs. Bennet is satirized throughout the novel. In Chapter 13, when she is
informed that Mr. Collins is coming for dinner, she rails against the injustice of the entail, which
she clearly does not understand. Mrs. Bennet’s poor intellectual acuity is the source of her three
younger daughters’ silliness and at the same time a satirical look at mothers who live only for
the marriages of their children. The fact that the entail was not designed in such a fashion as to
allow Mr. Bennet’s daughters to inherit the estate is a central plot device that the reader has
already accepted, but Mrs. Bennet continues to struggle with the concept.
7. "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."
In one of the most humorous moments of the novel, Elizabeth confronts her parents about her
refusal of Mr. Collins’ offer of marriage (Chapter 20). Mrs. Bennet, furious that Elizabeth turned
Collins down, brings her to her father so that he will insist that she accept the offer. His
paradoxical response is typical of his arch pronouncements. Viewed in a more tender light, it is a
touching affirmation of his love for his second daughter. Of all of the Bennet girls, only Elizabeth,
by temperament and intellect, can appreciate his ironic wit. His support of her here buttresses
her already significant pride and independence.
8. “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.”
Elizabeth’s astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured, doubted, and
was silent. This he considered sufficient encouragement, and the avowal of all that he
felt and had long felt for her, immediately followed. He spoke well, but there were
feelings besides those of the heart to be detailed, and he was not more eloquent on the
subject of tenderness than of pride. His sense of her inferiority—of its being a
degradation—of the family obstacles which judgment had always opposed to
inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to the consequence he was
wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his suit.
This is the climactic moment that takes place at nearly the exact middle of the novel (Chapter
34). While visiting Charlotte (Lucas) Collins at Rosings, Elizabeth is surprised while alone by the
sudden appearance of Mr. Darcy, who has been gradually falling more and more deeply in love
with her over the course of the rising action. However, Elizabeth is still in the grips of her hurt
pride from the statement she overheard him make in Chapter 2. As a result, she turns down his
proposal for marriage here, thus setting in motion the falling action and denouement. Hurt by
her refusal, Darcy writes Elizabeth an impassioned letter that begins to lift the veil from her eyes
concerning the true history or Mr. Wickham. When Darcy intercedes to help the Bennet family
save face when Lydia runs off with Wickham, Elizabeth undergoes a change of heart.
9. “There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those two men.
One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it.”
When Elizabeth shares what she has learned about Mr. Wickham’s history with Jane in Chapter
40, Jane expresses her shock in these lines. The two men to whom she is referring are Mr. Darcy
and Mr. Wickham. That so many people were taken in by Wickham is largely due to their quick
judgment of his character based on his handsome good looks and the appearance that he is a
gentleman. Jane’s suggestion that Mr. Darcy has “got all the goodness” may also have worked
its way into Elizabeth’s evolving judgment of Mr. Darcy.
10. “They gradually ascended for half a mile, and then found themselves at the top of a
considerable eminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by
Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which the road with
some abruptness wound. It was a large, handsome, stone building, standing well on
rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills;—and in front, a stream of
some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial
appearance. Its banks were neither formal, nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was
delighted. She had never seen a place where nature had done more, or where natural
beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. They were all of them
warm in her admiration; and at that moment she felt that to be mistress of Pemberley
might be something!”
Elizabeth visits Mr. Darcy’s ancestral estate, Pemberley, with her aunt and uncle, the Gardiners,
in Chapter 43. In Jane Austen’s novels, physical estates, their layout and character, are often
analogues for the characters who own them. Here, the orderly and admirable character of
Pemberley affects Elizabeth’s view of Mr. Darcy. A man who was raised in such a surrounding
and who maintains it in this fashion must have an admirable personality to match it. Combined
with Mr. Darcy’s selfless actions to help the Bennets avoid embarrassment from the Lydia
scandal, Elizabeth’s opinion of him begins to improve rapidly. Does she also begin to imagine
herself as mistress of the estate were she to marry Mr. Darcy? The author hints that her heroine
may not be completely above material temptations.
11. “Unhappy as the event must be ... we may draw from it this useful lesson: that loss of
virtue in a female is irretrievable; that one false step involves her in endless ruin; that
her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful; and that she cannot be too much
guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex.”
As the Bennet family absorbs the news of Lydia scandalous elopement with Mr. Wickham in
Chapter 47, Austen once again puts seemingly pedantic, yet significant, words in the mouth of
Mary Bennet. That society’s judgment very much conformed to Mary’s description of it weighed
especially heavily on Elizabeth, who felt that this family scandal would make an alliance with Mr.
Darcy impossible. This unhappy moment in the novel is a nadir for Elizabeth’s morale, as she
contemplates the very real possibility that her family will suffer financial ruin as a result of Lydia’s
scandal. She feels personally responsible since she turned down Mr. Darcy’s offer of marriage
(and Mr. Collins’ as well) which would have rescued the girls from the impending doom of the
entailment.
12. “Elizabeth was much too embarrassed to say a word. After a short pause, her
companion added, “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.” Elizabeth feeling all the
more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to
speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand, that her
sentiments had undergone so material a change, since the period to which he alluded,
as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure, his present assurances.”
This underwhelming moment in Chapter 58 is the resolution of the novel’s plot. It is easy to
read past it without noticing, but Elizabeth has accepted Mr. Darcy’s second proposal. Lady
Catherine de Bourgh’s condescending visit to Longbourne helped push Elizabeth to a complete
reversal of her low opinion of Darcy that began with his insulting comments about her in
Chapter 2. Her wounded pride from that incident has been won over by Darcy’s altruistic
behavior, and Lady Catherine’s new insult to Elizabeth’s pride gives her all the more reason to
do the opposite of what the haughty woman asked. All six of Jane Austen’s novels are Cinderella
stories at heart, and once again her protagonist has overcome all odds and obstacles to
successfully marry above her station.
13. “You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking and looking, and
thinking for your approbation alone. I roused, and interested you, because I was so
unlike them.”
As the novel is coming to its final resolution, here in Chapter 60 Elizabeth is debriefing her
turbulent relationship with her new husband. She suggests that it was her pride and refusal to
act according to custom that intrigued him. He, like she, behaved in a contrary manner, refusing
fawning suitors who were only after his money just as she refused suitors (Mr. Collins) who
where only after hers. They have both defied social conventions by marrying outside of their
spheres, but they are well matched in their sharp wit and unappreciated goodness of character.
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1. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good
fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
From the very first sentence of the novel, Jane Austen plunges the reader into a world of ironic
wit in which statements are often to be taken to mean precisely the opposite of what they seem
to say on the surface. The “single man in possession of a good fortune” to whom this quotation
refers is not named by the narrator, but Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy are the two chief eligible
bachelors in the novel (excluding the undesirable Mr. Collins and the rakish Mr. Wickham). While
Mr. Bingley may in fact be in want of a wife, Mr. Darcy’s social reticence makes him an unlikely
character to be described in this way.
2. “Which do you mean?” and turning round, he looked for a moment at Elizabeth, till
catching her eye, he withdrew his own and coldly said, “She is tolerable; but not
handsome enough to tempt me; and I am in no humour at present to give consequence
to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner
and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me.”
This critically important moment in Chapter 3 sets in motion the central conflict of the novel;
namely Elizabeth’s dislike of Mr. Darcy that gradually grows into loving affection in the face of
pressure to find a suitable husband. Mr. Darcy is speaking to his friend Mr. Bingley at the dance
at Netherfield, irked that Darcy refuses to dance. While Darcy “coldly” insults Elizabeth (without
realizing that she is within earshot), he soon changes his opinion of her in the remaining
chapters of the exposition. However, the fact that he is able to overcome his prejudice does not
mean that Elizabeth is able to quickly forget this wound to her pride.
3. “Oh! you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general. You never see
a fault in anybody. All the world are good and agreeable in your eyes. I never heard
you speak ill of a human being in my life.”
As Elizabeth and Jane debrief their experience at the dance at Netherfield (Chapter 4), Elizabeth
chides her sister for her one character flaw: Jane never thinks ill of anyone. While the younger
three Bennet sisters have broadly drawn character flaws, the elder two are much more complex,
and their flaws are less cartoonish. Jane’s flaw, if it can be called a flaw, is a symptom of her
overwhelming goodness. This contrasts with Elizabeth’s critical appraisal of people which she has
inherited from her father. While Jane’s flaw does her credit, it also means that she is less useful
in her role of counselor to her younger sister when Elizabeth is undergoing her personal crisis in
the middle and second half of the novel.
4. "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."
The pedantic Mary Bennet bores everyone with whom she comes into contact, but the author
uses her to give voice to bookish pronouncements that are carefully placed signposts in the
novel. Here, as Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth, and Charlotte Lucas are discussing Mr. Darcy’s accidental
insult of Elizabeth (Chapter 5), Mary prompts the reader to consider pride and vanity. Several
important characters in the novel possess these two traits in varying intensities and
combinations, especially Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Collins, Lady Catherine, and Mr. Wickham. The
novel ultimately rewards two overly proud characters (Elizabeth and Darcy) while it satirizes the
vain characters (Lady Catherine and Mr. Collins) mercilessly.
5. "A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to
matrimony, in a moment."
In the end of Chapter 6, Mr. Darcy confesses his admiration of Elizabeth Bennet to Miss Bingley.
When Miss Bingley teases him by asking when he intends to marry Elizabeth, he scolds her with
this rebuke. While the statement is meant for Miss Bingley, it also is a message to the reader in
which the author criticizes the overly-romantic leanings of young women of her time (and some
might say all times). In the second half of the novel, Elizabeth’s gradually growing affection for
Darcy will not jump so quickly at all. The fact that Elizabeth is a fully realized, three-dimensional
character who defies this stereotype is a major ingredient in her status as one of the great
literary heroines.
6. “Jane and Elizabeth attempted to explain to her the nature of an entail. They had
often attempted it before, but it was a subject on which Mrs. Bennet was beyond the
reach of reason; and she continued to rail bitterly against the cruelty of settling an
estate away from a family of five daughters, in favor of a man whom nobody cared
anything about.”
The ridiculous Mrs. Bennet is satirized throughout the novel. In Chapter 13, when she is
informed that Mr. Collins is coming for dinner, she rails against the injustice of the entail, which
she clearly does not understand. Mrs. Bennet’s poor intellectual acuity is the source of her three
younger daughters’ silliness and at the same time a satirical look at mothers who live only for
the marriages of their children. The fact that the entail was not designed in such a fashion as to
allow Mr. Bennet’s daughters to inherit the estate is a central plot device that the reader has
already accepted, but Mrs. Bennet continues to struggle with the concept.
7. "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."
In one of the most humorous moments of the novel, Elizabeth confronts her parents about her
refusal of Mr. Collins’ offer of marriage (Chapter 20). Mrs. Bennet, furious that Elizabeth turned
Collins down, brings her to her father so that he will insist that she accept the offer. His
paradoxical response is typical of his arch pronouncements. Viewed in a more tender light, it is a
touching affirmation of his love for his second daughter. Of all of the Bennet girls, only Elizabeth,
by temperament and intellect, can appreciate his ironic wit. His support of her here buttresses
her already significant pride and independence.
8. “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.”
Elizabeth’s astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured, doubted, and
was silent. This he considered sufficient encouragement, and the avowal of all that he
felt and had long felt for her, immediately followed. He spoke well, but there were
feelings besides those of the heart to be detailed, and he was not more eloquent on the
subject of tenderness than of pride. His sense of her inferiority—of its being a
degradation—of the family obstacles which judgment had always opposed to
inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to the consequence he was
wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his suit.
This is the climactic moment that takes place at nearly the exact middle of the novel (Chapter
34). While visiting Charlotte (Lucas) Collins at Rosings, Elizabeth is surprised while alone by the
sudden appearance of Mr. Darcy, who has been gradually falling more and more deeply in love
with her over the course of the rising action. However, Elizabeth is still in the grips of her hurt
pride from the statement she overheard him make in Chapter 2. As a result, she turns down his
proposal for marriage here, thus setting in motion the falling action and denouement. Hurt by
her refusal, Darcy writes Elizabeth an impassioned letter that begins to lift the veil from her eyes
concerning the true history or Mr. Wickham. When Darcy intercedes to help the Bennet family
save face when Lydia runs off with Wickham, Elizabeth undergoes a change of heart.
9. “There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those two men.
One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it.”
When Elizabeth shares what she has learned about Mr. Wickham’s history with Jane in Chapter
40, Jane expresses her shock in these lines. The two men to whom she is referring are Mr. Darcy
and Mr. Wickham. That so many people were taken in by Wickham is largely due to their quick
judgment of his character based on his handsome good looks and the appearance that he is a
gentleman. Jane’s suggestion that Mr. Darcy has “got all the goodness” may also have worked
its way into Elizabeth’s evolving judgment of Mr. Darcy.
10. “They gradually ascended for half a mile, and then found themselves at the top of a
considerable eminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by
Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which the road with
some abruptness wound. It was a large, handsome, stone building, standing well on
rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills;—and in front, a stream of
some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial
appearance. Its banks were neither formal, nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was
delighted. She had never seen a place where nature had done more, or where natural
beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. They were all of them
warm in her admiration; and at that moment she felt that to be mistress of Pemberley
might be something!”
Elizabeth visits Mr. Darcy’s ancestral estate, Pemberley, with her aunt and uncle, the Gardiners,
in Chapter 43. In Jane Austen’s novels, physical estates, their layout and character, are often
analogues for the characters who own them. Here, the orderly and admirable character of
Pemberley affects Elizabeth’s view of Mr. Darcy. A man who was raised in such a surrounding
and who maintains it in this fashion must have an admirable personality to match it. Combined
with Mr. Darcy’s selfless actions to help the Bennets avoid embarrassment from the Lydia
scandal, Elizabeth’s opinion of him begins to improve rapidly. Does she also begin to imagine
herself as mistress of the estate were she to marry Mr. Darcy? The author hints that her heroine
may not be completely above material temptations.
11. “Unhappy as the event must be ... we may draw from it this useful lesson: that loss of
virtue in a female is irretrievable; that one false step involves her in endless ruin; that
her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful; and that she cannot be too much
guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex.”
As the Bennet family absorbs the news of Lydia scandalous elopement with Mr. Wickham in
Chapter 47, Austen once again puts seemingly pedantic, yet significant, words in the mouth of
Mary Bennet. That society’s judgment very much conformed to Mary’s description of it weighed
especially heavily on Elizabeth, who felt that this family scandal would make an alliance with Mr.
Darcy impossible. This unhappy moment in the novel is a nadir for Elizabeth’s morale, as she
contemplates the very real possibility that her family will suffer financial ruin as a result of Lydia’s
scandal. She feels personally responsible since she turned down Mr. Darcy’s offer of marriage
(and Mr. Collins’ as well) which would have rescued the girls from the impending doom of the
entailment.
12. “Elizabeth was much too embarrassed to say a word. After a short pause, her
companion added, “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.” Elizabeth feeling all the
more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to
speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand, that her
sentiments had undergone so material a change, since the period to which he alluded,
as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure, his present assurances.”
This underwhelming moment in Chapter 58 is the resolution of the novel’s plot. It is easy to
read past it without noticing, but Elizabeth has accepted Mr. Darcy’s second proposal. Lady
Catherine de Bourgh’s condescending visit to Longbourne helped push Elizabeth to a complete
reversal of her low opinion of Darcy that began with his insulting comments about her in
Chapter 2. Her wounded pride from that incident has been won over by Darcy’s altruistic
behavior, and Lady Catherine’s new insult to Elizabeth’s pride gives her all the more reason to
do the opposite of what the haughty woman asked. All six of Jane Austen’s novels are Cinderella
stories at heart, and once again her protagonist has overcome all odds and obstacles to
successfully marry above her station.
13. “You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking and looking, and
thinking for your approbation alone. I roused, and interested you, because I was so
unlike them.”
As the novel is coming to its final resolution, here in Chapter 60 Elizabeth is debriefing her
turbulent relationship with her new husband. She suggests that it was her pride and refusal to
act according to custom that intrigued him. He, like she, behaved in a contrary manner, refusing
fawning suitors who were only after his money just as she refused suitors (Mr. Collins) who
where only after hers. They have both defied social conventions by marrying outside of their
spheres, but they are well matched in their sharp wit and unappreciated goodness of character.
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Pride and Prejudice