21 Pride and Prejudice Quotes to Remind You Why You Love Jane Austen
We’ve yet to meet a true-bleu Jane Austen fan whose sole exposure to her canon is Pride and Prejudice, but it is a truth universally acknowledged that Austen’s most famous novel usually tops the list as the most quotable. In honor of Pride and Prejudice’s upcoming 205th birthday (observed by Bas Bleu on January 28, the anniversary of its 1813 publication), we collected twenty-one of our favorite quotations, exchanges, observations, bon mots—even one or two epic burns—from Austen’s literary masterpiece. (Your fave didn’t make the cut? Share it with us in the comments below!)
“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?”
“Indulge your imagination in every possible flight.”
“There is nothing so bad as parting with one’s friends. One seems so forlorn without them.”
“Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
“Angry people are not always wise.”
“Lady Catherine will not think the worse of you for being simply dressed. She likes to have the distinction of rank preserved.”
“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.”
“I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.”
“But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever.”
“I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment I never knew myself.”
“Is not general incivility the very essence of love?”
“I certainly have not the talent which some people possess of conversing easily with those I have never seen before.”
