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It’s honestly hard to not know about Pride and Prejudice.
Even if you’ve never read it, chances are you’ve heard of it or seen a movie version floating around.
This book has a massive cult following, and I totally get why.
It’s got everything: witty banter, unforgettable characters, and those swoon-worthy moments that make you feel all kinds of things.
When I finally read the book, I couldn’t stop and I had to watch every movie adaptation, but none of them could quite live up to the magic of the book.
But the one thing they all (or some) got right? Those incredible lines.
Pride and Prejudice has some of the best quotes ever, and I’m here to share my favorite ones with you that aren’t just the opening sentence.
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Best Pride and Prejudice Quotes
1. “You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”
2. “I am determined that only the deepest love will induce me into matrimony. So, I shall end an old maid, and teach your ten children to embroider cushions and play their instruments very ill.”
3. “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.”
4. “Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are men to rocks and mountains?”
5. “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.”
6. “To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.”
7. “Could there be finer symptoms? Is not general incivility the very essence of love?”
8. “I might as well enquire,” replied she, “why, with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character?”
9. “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.”
10. “A girl’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”
11. “How little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue.”
12. “I could easily forgive his pride if he had not mortified mine.”
13. “There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.”
14. “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.”
15. “Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.”
16. “We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him.”
17. “Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied.”
18. “You expect me to account for opinions which you choose to call mine, but which I have never acknowledged.”
19. “The power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance.”
20. “I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor their offences against myself. My good opinion once lost is lost forever.”
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21. “It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion, to be secure of judging properly at first.”
22. “It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does. And men take care that they should.”
23. “She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should meet.”
24. “Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces.”
25. “Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.”
26. “We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the éclat of a proverb.”
27. “I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh.”
28. “From all that I can collect by your manner of talking, you must be two of the silliest girls in the country. I have suspected it some time, but I am now convinced.”
29. “A girl likes to be crossed a little in love now and then. It is something to think of.”
30. “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?”
31. “What a shame, for I dearly love to laugh.”
32. “Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride—where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation.”
33. “One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.”
34. “Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.”
35. “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.”
36. “That will do extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let the other young ladies have time to exhibit.”
37. “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.”
38. “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.”
39. “He is a gentleman, and I am a gentleman’s daughter. So far we are equal.”
40. “Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.”
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41. “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.”
42. “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.”
43. “It sometimes is a disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him.”
44. “I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child, I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit.”
45. “How little permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue.”
I hope you found a quote (or two!) that made you smile. Which one was your favorite? Let me know in the comments below!
Looking for more literary inspiration? Check out these related posts:
- 45 Quotes from Persuasion by Jane Austen
