Pride and Prejudice is an 1813 romantic novel of manners written by Jane Austen. The novel follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the dynamic protagonist of the book who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between superficial goodness and actual goodness. Its humour lies in its honest depiction of manners, education, marriage, and money during the Regency era in Great Britain. Profoundly inspirational Pride and Prejudice quotes will make you look at life differently and help you live a meaningful life.
If you’re searching for meaningful quotes from books that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of profound Jane Eyre quotes, amazing Wuthering Heights quotes and top As I Lay Dying quotes.
Famous Pride and Prejudice Quotes
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
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.
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 the result of previous study?
Is not general incivility the very essence of love?
She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should meet.
For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?
A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.
Till this moment I never knew myself.
In vain I have 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.
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 for ever.
Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.
We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him.
Angry people are not always wise.
Do not consider me now as an elegant female, intending to play you, but as a rational creature, speaking the truth from her heart.
Do anything rather than marry without affection.
One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.
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.
You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.
I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit.
I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.
Nothing is more deceitful…than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.
You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.
A girl likes to be crossed a little in love now and then.
Your defect is a propensity to hate everybody. And yours, he replied with a smile, is willfully to misunderstand them.
Those who do not complain are never pitied.
There is nothing so bad as parting with one’s friends. One seems too forlorn without them.
The distance is nothing when one has motive.
What are men to rocks and mountains?
A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.
Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.
I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh. Mr. Darcy sends you all the love in the world that he can spare from me.
I have not the smallest objection to explaining them, said he, as soon as she allowed him to speak. You either choose this method of passing the evening because you are in each other’s confidence, and have secret affairs to discuss, or because you are conscious that your figures appear to the greatest advantage in walking; if the first, I would be completely in your way, and if the second, I can admire you much better as I sit by the fire.
Their eyes instantly met, and the cheeks of both were overspread with the deepest blush.
I remember hearing you once say, Mr. Darcy, that you hardly ever forgave, that your resentment once created was unappeasable. You are very cautious, I suppose, as to its being created. I am, said he, with a firm voice. And never allow yourself to be blinded by prejudice? I hope not.
But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever.
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.
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 distain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of the 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 on whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.
What are young men to rocks and mountains?
Your conjecture is totally wrong, I assure you. My mind was more agreeably engaged. I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.
Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion.
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.
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.
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.
There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil—a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.
You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner
My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.
I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.
To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.
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.
If you will thank me, he replied, let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you.
I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.
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.
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.
It’s been many years since I had such an exemplary vegetable.
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.
Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride – where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation.
