Pride and Prejudice quotes by chapter, character and theme

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

Chapter 1 · Narrator

The first sentence of the novel, before anyone speaks. The narrator is stating what the neighbourhood takes for granted, not what Mrs Bennet says in her own voice.

The irony is in "universally" and in the jump from his fortune to her marriage. A marriage paragraph can start here, then show Charlotte or Elizabeth deciding on different grounds.

• marriage
• class

“You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.”

Chapter 1 · Mr Bennet

Mr Bennet is at home with his wife. She has just said he abuses his own children and has no compassion on her poor nerves. He answers her. He is not soothing her.

The joke treats her nerves as a habit he has lived with, which tells you the marriage before it tells you the plot. Set it beside his serious warning in Chapter 59, when Elizabeth's own marriage is the subject.

• family
• marriage

The business of her life was to get her daughters married: its solace was visiting and news.

Chapter 1 · Narrator

The narrator has finished with Mr Bennet and is summing up his wife: little information, an uncertain temper, and nerves she fancies when she is discontented. This sentence closes that sketch. Mrs Bennet does not say it. In this text the pause is a colon, not a semicolon.

"Business" makes marriage sound like her job, and "solace" makes gossip the comfort when the job stalls. It is the opening sentence put into one character's life.

• marriage

“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.

Chapter 3 · Fitzwilliam Darcy

At the Meryton assembly, Bingley offers to have his partner introduce Darcy to Elizabeth, who is sitting down nearby. Darcy looks at her, catches her eye, and says this to Bingley. Elizabeth hears it. In this text there is a colon after "tolerable".

He refuses the dance and he also refuses to raise her status by standing up with her. Elizabeth's dislike starts from a sentence she was not meant to settle, which is why the line belongs in a prejudice essay as well as a pride one.

• pride
• prejudice

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

Chapter 5 · Elizabeth Bennet

The morning after the assembly, when the Lucases have come to Longbourn to talk over the ball. Charlotte has said a man with family and fortune has a right to be proud. Elizabeth answers Charlotte. Mary is about to turn the same subject into a little lecture.

She grants Darcy's pride and then makes her own the real objection. The line is useful because it admits the feeling is personal. She is not yet pretending to be a fair judge.

• pride

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.

Chapter 5 · Mary Bennet

Mary joins the same conversation at Longbourn, straight after Elizabeth's remark. She is showing off a general idea from her reading. She is not describing Darcy from anything she has seen.

The distinction is neater than the scene. Mary splits the words; Elizabeth has just shown how the two feelings tangle when you have been snubbed. Quote Mary if you want the definition, then show a character who fails to keep them apart.

• pride

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.

Chapter 6 · Charlotte Lucas

Charlotte is talking to Elizabeth about Jane and Bingley. Elizabeth thinks four evenings are too little to know him. Charlotte says she would be glad if Jane married him tomorrow, and then says this.

Elizabeth laughs and tells Charlotte she would never act on it. Chapter 22 is the answer. Use the pair, and do not treat this speech as Charlotte being cynical for show.

• marriage

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

Chapter 8 · Elizabeth Bennet

At Netherfield, while Jane is ill upstairs. Darcy has said he knows only half a dozen accomplished women. Caroline agrees, then lists music, languages and a manner of walking, and Darcy adds extensive reading. Elizabeth says this to him.

The list is a class display as much as a definition of women. Elizabeth's reply refuses the list without offering herself as the exception. Darcy then asks if she is severe upon her own sex.

• gender
• class

Darcy had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her.

Chapter 10 · Narrator

At Netherfield, Elizabeth has told Darcy she does not want to dance a reel, and that he may despise her if he dares. He says he does not dare. This is the narrator's next sentence, about his feeling. He does not say it to her. The sentence after it is his thought that her connections are inferior.

The film line "You have bewitched me, body and soul" is not in the book. This one is, and it stays inside his head. It already ties attraction to the class objection he will speak aloud at Hunsford.

• love
• class

But pride--where there is a real superiority of mind--pride will be always under good regulation.

Chapter 11 · Fitzwilliam Darcy

An evening at Netherfield. Elizabeth has called vanity and pride weaknesses. Darcy answers her. Miss Bingley is in the room and asks what the examination has found. The double hyphens are in this text.

He thinks pride is safe if the mind is genuinely superior, which is a comfortable rule for the person writing it. Elizabeth turns away to hide a smile. The later apology in Chapter 58 is the same man dropping the rule.

• pride

My good opinion once lost is lost for ever.

Chapter 11 · Fitzwilliam Darcy

The same Netherfield evening, a few speeches on. Elizabeth has been teasing him. He is listing his own faults and calls his temper resentful. He says this to Elizabeth, with Miss Bingley listening.

Elizabeth calls it implacable resentment and says she cannot laugh at it. Remember the line when she tests him at the ball, because she is quoting this habit back at him.

• pride
• prejudice

Mr. Darcy can please where he chooses. He does not want abilities. He can be a conversible companion if he thinks it worth his while.

Chapter 16 · George Wickham

At Mrs Philips's house in Meryton. Elizabeth has asked how the amiable Bingley can be friends with Darcy. Wickham answers her. The whist party has not yet broken up.

He sounds fair. He grants Darcy ability, then makes the manners a choice reserved for equals. Elizabeth already dislikes Darcy, so the fairness is easy to trust. That is the deception.

• pride
• reputation

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.

Chapter 16 · George Wickham

The same evening at Mrs Philips's. Elizabeth has said that everybody in Hertfordshire is disgusted with Darcy's pride. Wickham says he cannot be sorry if Darcy is rated at his true worth, and then says this.

"Blinded" is Wickham's word for everyone who still rates Darcy. Elizabeth will use "prejudice" against Darcy himself at the ball. After the letter, she has to notice which of them put the blindfold on.

• prejudice
• reputation

“And never allow yourself to be blinded by prejudice?”

Chapter 18 · Elizabeth Bennet

During Elizabeth and Darcy's dance at the Netherfield ball. Sir William has already interrupted them. She has reminded Darcy that he once said his resentment, once created, was unappeasable. He says he is cautious about creating it. She asks this.

She thinks she is testing him about Wickham. She is also describing her own habit, and she cannot hear that yet. Keep the question mark. It is a trap, not a principle she is living by.

• prejudice

Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.

Chapter 19 · Elizabeth Bennet

Mr Collins has proposed to Elizabeth at Longbourn, having arranged to be left alone with her. She has refused. He treats the refusal as the affectation of an elegant woman. She says this to him. He answers that she is uniformly charming.

She asks to be heard as a rational creature, and he turns the sentence into another compliment. The line is about who gets to mean what they say in a proposal, not only about Elizabeth's wit.

• gender
• marriage

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

Chapter 19 · Mr Collins

Earlier in the same proposal, before Elizabeth has managed to stop him. He tells her he will state his reasons. This is the first. The third, which he says he ought to have mentioned earlier, is Lady Catherine's advice. He is speaking to Elizabeth, not preaching.

The list never arrives at love for her. A clergyman's example and a patroness's hint come first. Stop the quotation at "parish" if you want this reason on its own: the sentence runs on to "secondly".

• marriage
• class

“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.”

Chapter 20 · Mr Bennet

The same day as the proposal, in the library. Mrs Bennet was waiting in the vestibule, and she has sent for Elizabeth. She is in the room. Elizabeth confirms the refusal. Her mother says she will never see her again if she does not marry Mr Collins. Mr Bennet answers Elizabeth, and turns that threat round.

Elizabeth smiles. He is not forcing the match. He is refusing to. The line shows a father who will back her judgement, which matters when you reach his much graver warning in Chapter 59.

• family
• marriage

I am not romantic, you know. I never was. I ask only a comfortable home; and, considering Mr. Collins’s character, connections, and situation in life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state.

Chapter 22 · Charlotte Lucas

Charlotte has accepted Mr Collins and has come to tell Elizabeth. Elizabeth has just forced out a wish for her happiness. Charlotte says she can see the surprise, because Collins was proposing to Elizabeth only days ago. This is her explanation, not a request for advice.

She uses the same standard she set out in Chapter 6, and she is calm about his character. "Connections" and "situation" do the work that love does not. The possessive in "Collins's" is the curly apostrophe printed in this file.

• marriage
• class

There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.

Chapter 31 · Elizabeth Bennet

At Rosings, Elizabeth is at the piano. Colonel Fitzwilliam is in the room. Darcy has walked over and placed himself where he can see her face. She tells him he means to frighten her by coming in all this state to hear her, and then says this to him. Lady Catherine is not the person being answered.

Darcy replies that she could not really believe he meant to alarm her, and that she likes professing opinions which are not her own. The line is teasing, in company. Save the open defiance for Lady Catherine in Chapter 56, and do not merge the two scenes.

• pride

“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.”

Chapter 34 · Fitzwilliam Darcy

At the Hunsford parsonage. Elizabeth is alone. Darcy comes in, asks after her health, sits, then walks about the room. After several minutes of silence he comes towards her and begins with this. She stares, colours, and says nothing. He takes the silence as encouragement.

"Struggled" is doing as much work as "ardently". He is proud of having fought the feeling. In this text the adverb is "how ardently", inside the sentence. It is not a separate line, "most ardently".

• love
• pride

But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence.

Chapter 34 · Fitzwilliam Darcy

Still the first proposal, after Elizabeth has answered him angrily. He says he might have hidden his scruples and flattered her into thinking the offer was unmixed inclination. He says this to her instead.

He offers the insult as honesty. The next breath is the question about the inferiority of her connections. "Abhorrence" sounds moral, and it licenses the rudeness.

• pride

Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections?--to congratulate myself on the hope of relations whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?

Chapter 34 · Fitzwilliam Darcy

The next words of that same speech to Elizabeth at Hunsford. He has just said that disguise is his abhorrence. The double hyphen is in this text. She grows angrier and tries to answer with composure.

This is the class sentence inside the love scene. He asks her to agree that her family is a degradation. Her reply, that a more gentlemanlike manner would only have changed how it felt to refuse him, hangs on this question.

• class
• pride

I have no wish of denying that I did everything in my power to separate my friend from your sister, or that I rejoice in my success.

Chapter 34 · Fitzwilliam Darcy

Elizabeth has accused him of dividing Bingley and Jane, and of leaving one to be called capricious and the other to bear disappointed hopes. He listens with no remorse, smiles with affected incredulity, and then says this to her. In this text it is "everything", one word.

He confesses the interference and he is glad of it. He adds that he has been kinder towards Bingley than towards himself. The line suits a class essay because the separation was about the Bennet family.

• class
• love

You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.

Chapter 34 · Elizabeth Bennet

Elizabeth to Darcy, still at Hunsford, immediately after the remark about her connections. She is trying to keep her voice level. He starts at the word, and at first says nothing. This text has "gentlemanlike" as one word, and no comma before "than".

The manner is not what decided her. It only made the refusal easier. If a revision card prints "gentleman-like" or adds a comma, check it against your own copy of the novel.

• class
• pride

you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.

Chapter 34 · Elizabeth Bennet

The end of her refusal, spoken to Darcy in the same room. She has just said that no possible way of offering his hand would have tempted her. The "you" has no capital because the clause sits inside a longer sentence: she had not known him a month before she felt this.

"Prevailed on" matters. She is saying that even pressure would not have moved her, not only that she does not love him yet. He answers that she has said quite enough, and he leaves. The letter is still to come.

• prejudice
• love

“How despicably have I acted!”

Chapter 36 · Elizabeth Bennet

The morning after the proposal, at Hunsford. Elizabeth is alone with Darcy's letter. She has gone from defending Wickham to feeling ashamed. The narrator says she cried this. She is on her own, walking in the lane by the park with the letter.

It is a speech, but it is not said to Darcy or to Jane. Quote it as the moment her pride in her own discernment cracks. The next sentences name that pride: she had valued herself on her abilities and disdained Jane's candour.

• prejudice

Till this moment, I never knew myself.

Chapter 36 · Elizabeth Bennet

Still alone, still on the letter, a few sentences after "How despicably have I acted!" She has said she courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away. She has not yet gone back to reread the part about Jane.

The comma after "moment" is in this text. The line is the essay's turning point only if you can say what she has just understood: she was pleased by Wickham and offended by Darcy from the start.

• prejudice
• pride

and at that moment she felt that to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!

Chapter 43 · Narrator

Elizabeth is seeing Pemberley for the first time, with the Gardiners. The narrator has just said she had never seen a place for which nature had done more. They are all warm in their admiration, and then she feels this. It is before she meets Darcy again, and before Mrs Reynolds praises him. The "and" has no capital because the sentence has already begun.

She is not accepting him. She is letting the place count. The exclamation is the narrator's, on her behalf. Use it with the Hunsford insult about connections if you want to show class working on her from the other side.

• class
• love

“He is the best landlord, and the best master,” said she, “that ever lived. Not like the wild young men now-a-days, who think of nothing but themselves.

Chapter 43 · Mrs Reynolds

On the great staircase at Pemberley. Mrs Reynolds has already told Mrs Gardiner that Darcy will be as affable to the poor as his father was. Elizabeth listens, wonders, doubts, and wants more; the pictures and the furniture cannot hold her. Mr Gardiner leads the housekeeper back to her master, and she says this to the visitors. He is amused, and puts the praise down to family prejudice.

A servant's report is new evidence: not Wickham, and not Darcy speaking for himself. "Now-a-days" is hyphenated in this text. She also says that people call him proud only because he does not rattle away like other young men.

• reputation
• pride

Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her.

Chapter 52 · Narrator

Elizabeth has just finished Mrs Gardiner's letter. What she had only suspected is now treated as certain: Darcy followed Wickham and Lydia to town, had to plead with a woman he despised, and in the end bribed Wickham. This sentence is the narrator on Elizabeth's hope. She does not say it aloud. The next sentence checks it.

The whisper is not a certainty. She soon decides that vanity is not enough to explain why he would join a family he abhors, as Wickham's brother-in-law. Quote the check as well as the hope, or the line sounds simpler than it is.

• love

Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?

Chapter 56 · Lady Catherine de Bourgh

Lady Catherine has come to Longbourn to stop a match she has heard rumoured. She and Elizabeth are walking out. She has raised Lydia's elopement, called the marriage a patched-up business, and asked if Wickham, the steward's son, is to be Darcy's brother. Then she says this to Elizabeth.

"Polluted" turns a marriage into a stain on a place. Elizabeth tells her she can have nothing further to say, and that she has been insulted in every possible method. The line is Lady Catherine's class argument at its plainest.

• class

“Obstinate, headstrong girl! I am ashamed of you!

Chapter 56 · Lady Catherine de Bourgh

A little later in the same walk. Elizabeth has said, drily, that the wife of Mr Darcy would have enough happiness attached to her situation to bear being censured. Lady Catherine answers with this. She then orders her to sit, and says she came with a determined resolution.

"Girl" is the put-down. Elizabeth is not a child, and she is not Lady Catherine's dependant. The line shows rank trying to sound like moral authority.

• class
• gender

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.

Chapter 56 · Elizabeth Bennet

Still on the walk with Lady Catherine. Elizabeth has said she has nothing further to say. Lady Catherine asks if she is resolved to have Darcy. Elizabeth says she has said no such thing, and then says this.

She will not confirm the engagement, because there is none yet. She will not hand the decision to Lady Catherine either. The commas are easy to tidy by accident. Keep "which will, in my own opinion,".

• marriage

I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit.

Chapter 58 · Fitzwilliam Darcy

Darcy and Elizabeth are out walking, after she has thanked him for what he did for Lydia. He has asked her to think only of the past as its remembrance gives pleasure. She will not. He then says he has been selfish all his life in practice, and this sentence follows, spoken to her.

The principles were real. The pride was in being left to apply them alone, as an only son who was encouraged to think meanly of the world outside his family. It answers the Chapter 11 claim that pride stays under good regulation.

• pride

such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth!

Chapter 58 · Fitzwilliam Darcy

The same walk and the same speech. He has said that from eight to eight-and-twenty he was selfish and overbearing. "Such" has no capital because it continues that sentence. He is speaking to Elizabeth. He goes on to say that she humbled him, and that he had been sure she wanted his addresses.

The change is credited to her refusal, not to a sudden new nature. "Dearest, loveliest" arrives only after the account of what was wrong. That order is the point.

• love
• pride

My child, let me not have the grief of seeing you unable to respect your partner in life.

Chapter 59 · Mr Bennet

In the library again. Mr Bennet has already consented to Darcy. He tells Elizabeth he knows she could be neither happy nor respectable unless she truly esteemed her husband and looked up to him as a superior. Then he says this. She has not yet finished convincing him that the regard is real.

This is not the joking father of Chapter 20. He is afraid of an unequal match in respect, not in money. "Looked up to him as a superior" sits in the sentence before, and it is his condition, so do not pretend the line is only about affection.

• marriage
• family

“I love him. Indeed he has no improper pride. He is perfectly amiable.

Chapter 59 · Elizabeth Bennet

Elizabeth to her father, just before that warning. She has asked if his only objection is that he thinks she is indifferent. He says they all know Darcy to be proud and unpleasant, but that this would be nothing if she really liked him. She answers in tears.

"No improper pride" keeps the early theme and changes the adjective. She is not saying he has no pride. She is saying the pride that mortified her was a misreading. She still has to persuade her father. The speech goes on.

• love
• pride

I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.

Chapter 60 · Fitzwilliam Darcy

After the engagement, Elizabeth asks Darcy how he ever began to love her. She can understand his going on once he had started, but not what set him off. He says he cannot fix the hour, the spot, the look or the words. Then he says this to her.

She pushes him. Her next line is that her manners were always bordering on the uncivil, and that she never spoke to him without rather wishing to give him pain. The love, in his account, did not wait for a gracious heroine.

• love