Pride and Prejudice Love Quotes

You need not send them word at Longbourn of my going, if you do not like it, for it will make the surprise the greater, when I write to them, and sign my name "Lydia Wickham." What a good joke it will be! I can hardly write for laughing.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 47. Lydia writes this in the letter she leaves behind when she elopes with Wickham. In the note, sent to Colonel Forster’s wife, Lydia refers to Wickham as the "one man in the world I love, and he is an angel." To Lydia, running off with a man is a huge joke. But in her foolishness she doesn’t stop to think about the repercussions of her actions for her and her sisters.

From such a connection she could not wonder that he would shrink. The wish of procuring her regard, which she had assured herself of his feeling in Derbyshire, could not in rational expectation survive such a blow as this. She was humbled, she was grieved; she repented, though she hardly knew of what. She became jealous of his esteem, when she could no longer hope to be benefited by it. She wanted to hear of him, when there seemed the least chance of gaining intelligence. She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should meet.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 50. After Elizabeth learns that Lydia will marry Wickham, she takes the opportunity to think more deeply about her feelings for Darcy. While her rival for Darcy’s affections Caroline Bingley is jealous of her, Elizabeth is only jealous of winning Darcy’s admiration. She longs for him and wants to hear of him. But she is fearful that his feelings for her in Derbyshire will not survive the scandal with Lydia. Now that Wickham has married into the Bennet family, she expects that Darcy will keep his distance from her. Is Elizabeth at last realizing that she is hopelessly in love with Darcy?

What a triumph for him, as she often thought, could he know that the proposals which she had proudly spurned only four months ago, would now have been gladly and gratefully received! He was as generous, she doubted not, as the most generous of his sex; but while he was mortal, there must be a triumph.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 50. Elizabeth ponders what she has lost by her proud rejection of Mr. Darcy’s marriage proposal. Her views of and feelings for Darcy have since dramatically changed. Now she thinks him as the most generous man and if he proposed now she would "gladly and gratefully" accept him.

She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man, who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 50. After her frosty rejection of Darcy’s first proposal of marriage, Elizabeth realizes that he is exactly the man most suited to her. As she grows in self-knowledge and gets to know the true Darcy, she realizes how flawed her perceptions of him have been. But has her realization come too late? The fuller quote shows the greater understanding she now has of Darcy’s true nature and character and how compatible they are: "She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It was an union that must have been to the advantage of both; by her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved; and from his judgment, information, and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance."

How little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 50. The narrator warns of the dangers involved in allowing passions overrule virtue. This refers to Lydia’s whirlwind affair with George Wickham when the boy-crazy fifteen-year-old elopes with the military officer to go to Gretna Green. This is a place in Scotland where fast weddings were performed for eloping couples. But it turns out that the pair don’t go there and instead went to a love nest in London.

Wickham’s affection for Lydia was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it – not equal to Lydia’s for him. She had scarcely needed her present observation to be satisfied, from the reason of things, that their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love rather than by his; and she would have wondered why, without violently caring for her, he chose to elope with her at all, had she not felt certain that his flight was rendered necessary by distress of circumstances; and if that were the case, he was not the young man to resist an opportunity of having a companion.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 51. Here Elizabeth is thinking about the elopment of Wickham and Lydia. She figures out that Wickham did not elope and marry Lydia out of true love but because of "distress of circumstances" (he owed a lot of money locally) and "an opportunity of having a companion" (he is a serial sexual predator). The elopement was also driven by Lydia’s strong infatuation for Wickham.

The motive professed was his conviction of its being owing to himself that Wickham’s worthlessness had not been so well known as to make it impossible for any young woman of character to love or confide in him. He generously imputed the whole to his mistaken pride, and confessed that he had before thought it beneath him to lay his private actions open to the world. His character was to speak for itself. He called it, therefore, his duty to step forward, and endeavour to remedy an evil which had been brought on by himself. If he had another motive, I am sure it would never disgrace him.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 52. Mrs. Gardiner writes a long letter to Elizabeth detailing how Darcy effectively negotiated and paid for the marriage of Wickham and Lydia. He traveled to London and found them, persuaded Wickham to marry Lydia by paying him a substantial sum of money and arranging a commission in the army, and got Mr. Gardiner to take credit for everything. Mrs. Gardiner’s letter speaks about Darcy’s professed motive for saving Lydia, but also hints at another motive – his love for Elizabeth.

Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her. But it was a hope shortly checked by other considerations, and she soon felt that even her vanity was insufficient, when required to depend on his affection for her, for a woman who had already refused him, as able to overcome a sentiment so natural as abhorrence against relationship with Wickham.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 52. When Mrs. Gardiner implies that Darcy’s rescue of Lydia was motivated by love for Elizabeth, Elizabeth wants to believe this. But she soon dismisses that hope as vanity. She cannot see how Darcy would want a woman who had refused him and a family that now included Wickham.

Elizabeth did not know what to make of it. Had she not seen him in Derbyshire, she might have supposed him capable of coming there with no other view than what was acknowledged; but she still thought him partial to Jane, and she wavered as to the greater probability of his coming there with his friend’s permission, or being bold enough to come without it.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 53. After reports that Charles Bingley is returning to Netherfield, Jane claims to be unaffected by the news, but Elizabeth thinks that Bingley still has feelings for Jane. She also wonders if Bingley is coming with the "permission" of his friend Darcy, or is brave enough to come without it.

A man who has once been refused! How could I ever be foolish enough to expect a renewal of his love? Is there one among the sex who would not protest against such a weakness as a second proposal to the same woman? There is no indignity so abhorrent to their feelings!

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 54. Elizabeth says this as Darcy walks away to another part of the room at Longbourn and she envies everyone he speaks to. She is angry at herself for being "so silly" in refusing his first proposal. She doesn’t expect a second.

Jane could have no reserves from Elizabeth where confidence would give pleasure; and instantly embracing her, acknowledged with the liveliest emotion that she was the happiest creature in the world.
"’Tis too much!" she added, "by far too much. I do not deserve it. Oh! why is not everybody as happy?"

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 55. Jane is overcome with emotion after Charles Bingley proposes marriage to her. She embraces her sister Elizabeth and says that she is the happinest creature in the world.

They shook hands with great cordiality; and then till her sister came down, she had to listen to all he had to say, of his own happiness, and of Jane’s perfections; and in spite of his being a lover, Elizabeth really believed all his expectations of felicity, to be rationally founded, because they had for basis the excellent understanding, and super-excellent disposition of Jane, and a general similarity of feeling and taste between her and himself.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 55. Charles Bingley asks for Elizabeth’s best wishes on his engagement to Jane. Elizabeth is happy for both of them. She believes that Bingley’s hopes of their happiness together is based not just on love, but on reason also. She refers to their compatibility, shared tastes and Jane’s "super-excellent" temperment. Elizabeth has learned the lesson of the dangers of a marriage based solely on passion from the disastrous example of her young sister Lydia’s blind infatuation for Wickham. Elizabeth also doesn’t share Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s view on marriage, that it should be arranged within your class to promote the material prosperity of the families, with no regard to the individuals involved. We gain this insight into the aristocratic lady’s thinking on marriage in the next chapter in the famous battle of wills between her and Elizabeth. For Elizabeth a good marriage is best achieved with a mix of love and reason. This very considered view on love and marriage is what makes Jane Austen so much more than a simple romance novel writer. She satirizes the conventional romantic novel, exposing the risks of "love at first sight" and promoting a love that grows from a knowledge of the other’s character.

Elizabeth had never been more at a loss to make her feelings appear what they were not. It was necessary to laugh, when she would rather have cried. Her father had most cruelly mortified her, by what he said of Mr. Darcy’s indifference.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 57. Mr. Bennet doesn’t take seriously Mr. Collins’s letter suggesting a marriage between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. He speaks insensitively about Darcy’s indifference to his daughter and Elizabeth’s dislike of Darcy. He jokes whether Lady Catherine has called to refuse her consent. Elizabeth goes along with the joke and replies with a laugh, but she feels like crying. The irony here is that Mr. Bennet is completely unaware of his daughter’s true feelings for Darcy.

"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."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 58. When Elizabeth thanks Mr. Darcy for helping her sister Lydia after she ran away with Wickham, Darcy declares his affection for Elizabeth. He did it all for her, he reveals.

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.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 58. If at first your don’t succeed…the climax of Austen’s classic story of love and misunderstanding arrives with Mr. Darcy’s famous second proposal and Elizabeth’s acceptance of it. Moments before Elizabeth learned that Darcy intervened to save Lydia because of his affection for Elizabeth. She is speechless with embarrassment, and Darcy uses the opportunity to propose again. Elizabeth clearly wasn’t ready to receive Darcy’s first proposal and his declaration of "how ardently I admire and love you." That proposal was also clumsily presented by Darcy, who spoke of how he struggled to repress his feelings and referred to Elizabeth’s inferior social position and family obstacles. But what an insulted Elizabeth didn’t understand then was that Darcy was trying to explain how he loved her in spite of her position and family connections. The second time round when Darcy proposes and Elizabeth accepts, it is more a conversation of equals instead of one or the other thinking that they are superior. Class is not a barrier. Also Darcy’s less prideful second proposal suggests no expectation on his part that Elizabeth will automatically accept him, as clearly was the expectation first time round. Elizabeth sees Darcy in a different light now as well, her stubbornness and prejudice against him having given way to a deeper understanding of his true character: honest and noble and a person of integrity. She has matured and grown to this point where she is ready to accept him.

The happiness which this reply produced, was such as he had probably never felt before; and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 58. Darcy is filled with happiness when Elizabeth accepts his second proposal. He is said to express himself "as warmly as a man violently in love." Does that mean that they embraced, or even kissed? It’s not spelled out, except to say it was "violent" and "warm," and so the debate on how Darcy expressed his love continues to this day.

They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 58. After a relationship dogged by pridefulness, prejudice and misunderstandings, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy finally have their perfect story-tale happy ending. The barriers that they put up against each other have been taken down, and Elizabeth has accepted his marriage proposal. They walk on, their attention on nothing but each other, alone to express their true feelings to each other and plan a life together. It is the moment that they and every reader of the novel has been waiting for. Sadly Jane Austen’s own story with her real-life Mr. Darcy didn’t have the same happy ending. Darcy is believed to be partly based on Irish judge and politician Thomas Lefroy. The Limerick born Lefroy and Austen were said to have a flirtation and spent some time together. In a letter to her sister Cassandra Austen in 1796 she wrote: "At length the day is come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, and when you receive this it will be over. My tears flow as I write at the melancholy idea." Both Jane and Cassandra never married but Lefroy married Mary Paul from Wexford, Ireland, in 1799. Just three years before this Jane told Cassandra in a letter: "At length the day is come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, and when you receive this it will be over. My tears flow as I write at the melancholy idea."

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. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family circle; to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 58. Mr. Darcy’s journey to self-discovery has brought him to this important moment of clarity and humility. Darcy has just proposed to Elizabeth and she has accepted. In this speech to Elizabeth he acknowledges his selfishness and pride and vanity all his life, having being spoiled by both parents. His father taught him to be overbearing, to care for none outside his family circle, and also to think meanly of the worth of others compared to his own. He acknowledges the debt that he owes to Elizabeth for changing all that: humbling him and ridding him of his pretensions. His deep love for Elizabeth comes through when he tenderly refers to her as "a woman worthy of being pleased."

"You are joking, Lizzy. This cannot be! – engaged to Mr. Darcy! – No, no, you shall not deceive me. I know it to be impossible."
"This is a wretched beginning indeed! My sole dependence was on you; and I am sure nobody else will believe me, if you do not. Yet, indeed, I am in earnest. I speak nothing but the truth. He still loves me, and we are engaged."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 59. When Elizabeth opens her heart to Jane and tells her of her engagement to Darcy, her sister is flabbergasted. She thinks that Elizabeth who hates Darcy must be deceiving her. But Elizabeth assures her that Darcy still loves her and the engagement is real.

"Will you tell me how long you have loved him?"
"It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 59. Jane is delighted for her sister Elizabeth over her engagement to Darcy and is dying to know how long she has loved him. Elizabeth admits that it wasn’t love at first sight, but her feelings changed and grew into love over time. But she recalls her visit to Pemberley as the turning point – while she was there she greatly admired the estate and fantasized about being mistress of it.

"Lizzy," said he, "what are you doing? Are you out of your senses, to be accepting this man? Have not you always hated him?"
"I do, I do like him," she replied, with tears in her eyes; "I love him. Indeed he has no improper pride. He is perfectly amiable. You do not know what he really is; then pray do not pain me by speaking of him in such terms."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 59. An incredulous Mr. Bennet walks around the room of his house looking grave and anxious, and wonders why his daughter wants to marry a man that she has always hated. But Elizabeth blurts out that she loves Mr. Darcy and that he has no improper pride. She tells him that it pains her to hear him speak badly of Darcy, that her father doesn’t know Mr. Darcy’s real character.

She wanted Mr. Darcy to account for his having ever fallen in love with her. "How could you begin?" said she. "I can comprehend your going on charmingly, when you had once made a beginning; but what could set you off in the first place?"
"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."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 60. Many of the novel’s readers would like to believe that it was love at first sight for Darcy. In this passage Elizabeth asks him to account for his falling in love with her. Darcy seems cagey with his answer, unable to pinpoint the moment or the place. But he does admit that it was long ago and he was in the throes of love before he knew it. Does that qualify for love at first sight? Or second sight perhaps?
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