Pride and Prejudice Quotes

"If you believed it impossible to be true," said Elizabeth, colouring with astonishment and disdain, "I wonder you took the trouble of coming so far. What could your ladyship propose by it?"
"At once to insist upon having such a report universally contradicted."
"Your coming to Longbourn, to see me and my family," said Elizabeth coolly, "will be rather a confirmation of it; if, indeed, such a report is in existence."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 56. The formidable Lady Catherine de Bourgh has come to Longbourn to speak to Elizabeth about a rumored engagement between her and Mr. Darcy. In the war of words that erupts between these two women, Elizabeth appears to be winning the battle of wits and enjoying it.

I do not pretend to possess equal frankness with your ladyship. You may ask questions which I shall not choose to answer.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 56. Lady Catherine is certainly not used to being spoken to like this, as Elizabeth stands up to the aristocratic bully in one of English literature’s truly great scenes. Elizabeth will answer only the questions she chooses to, she tells de Bourgh. To her ladyship it must appear to be the height of impertinence. To Elizabeth it is expressing her independence of spirit and equality as a person.

If Mr. Darcy is neither by honour nor inclination confined to his cousin, why is not he to make another choice? And if I am that choice, why may not I accept him?

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 56. A defiant Elizabeth rejects Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s demands to give up all claims on Mr. Darcy, since Lady Catherine and her sister decided long ago that he would marry Lady Catherine’s daughter. Elizabeth also indicates here that she is not opposed to the idea of marrying Darcy – foreshadowing his second proposal to her and her acceptance.

Because honour, decorum, prudence, nay, interest, forbid it. Yes, Miss Bennet, interest; for do not expect to be noticed by his family or friends, if you wilfully act against the inclinations of all. You will be censured, slighted, and despised, by everyone connected with him. Your alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never even be mentioned by any of us.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 56. Lady Catherine de Bourgh voices her strong disapproval to Elizabeth of any marriage engagement between her and Lady Catherine’s nephew Mr. Darcy. She threatens Elizabeth with all kinds of nasty consequences if she accepts a proposal from Darcy. They include disgrace, and being slighted and despised by everybody in Darcy’s high society. Lady Catherine is a caricature who represents the extremes of snobbish pride and prejudice.

I will not be interrupted. Hear me in silence. My daughter and my nephew are formed for each other. They are descended, on the maternal side, from the same noble line; and, on the father’s, from respectable, honourable, and ancient – though untitled – families. Their fortune on both sides is splendid. They are destined for each other by the voice of every member of their respective houses; and what is to divide them? The upstart pretensions of a young woman without family, connections, or fortune. Is this to be endured! But it must not, shall not be.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 56. As class war breaks out between Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Elizabeth, the domineering and haughty de Bourgh spells out why an "upstart" like Elizabeth is an unsuitable match for her nephew Darcy. Pointing to her lack of money, connections and family position, she dismisses Elizabeth as simply a young women with pretensions above her station. In de Bourgh’s world, marriage doesn’t cross social and money boundaries. Lady Catherine is a quintessential rude snob with no self-awareness of how ill behaved she is. Austen uses satire here to ridicule the extreme class consciousness in English society at the time.

In marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that sphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman’s daughter; so far we are equal.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 56. In the famous showdown scene between Elizabeth and Lady Catherine, Austen presents the two adversaries along with Mr. Darcy as equals. Even if Lady Catherine doesn’t see it that way, Elizabeth does. Here de Bourgh has just suggested to Elizabeth that if she is sensible she would not wish to quit the sphere in which she was brought up. Elizabeth retorts that in marrying de Bourgh’s nephew she would not be be quitting that sphere. Mr. Darcy is a gentleman and Elizabeth is the daughter of a gentleman, she defiantly tells Lady Catherine, who is upset at the idea of her nephew Darcy marrying someone "beneath" him like Elizabeth. Elizabeth is certainly Darcy’s equal in intelligence and wit. She can also stand her ground and hold her own with Lady Catherine and doesn’t view herself as inferior to the aristocratic lady. In Austen’s day class distinction was very much embedded in British society with the aristocracy owning a great deal of wealth and property and wielding a lot of power. While class barriers have been broken down somewhat today, there still is a wealthy and advantaged elite and an aristocracy of lords, ladies, sirs and dames.

I am not to be intimidated into anything so wholly unreasonable…You have widely mistaken my character, if you think I can be worked on by such persuasions as these. How far your nephew might approve of your interference in his affairs, I cannot tell; but you certainly have no right to concern yourself in mine.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 56. Elizabeth responds with an emphatic refusal to Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s demand that she promise never to enter an engagement with Mr. Darcy. She coolly tells the upper class bully that she won’t be intimated by her. Elizabeth is not going to be pushed around by a snob.

Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 56. Lady Catherine de Bourgh admonishes Elizabeth over the idea of her marrying Mr. Darcy. Displaying her extreme snobbery and vanity, Lady Catherine travels all the way from her estate to the Bennets’ home to ensure that her pure family blood is not "polluted" by what she sees as an unthinkable alliance between her nephew and Bennets with their inferior blood. This is the fuller quote from the desperate lady: "Not so hasty, if you please. I have by no means done. To all the objections I have already urged, I have still another to add. I am no stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister’s infamous elopement. I know it all: that the young man’s marrying her was a patched-up business, at the expence of your father and uncle. And is such a girl to be my nephew’s sister? Is her husband, is the son of his late father’s steward, to be his brother? Heaven and earth – of what are you thinking? Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?"

"You are then resolved to have him?"
"I have said no such thing. 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."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 56. In the verbal battle between two strong women the sparks fly. On one side: an uncivil, bullying snob. On the other: a very civil, independent-minded, young woman of integrity who remains true to herself. The epic confrontation between Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Elizabeth Bennet over a rumored marriage engagement between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth is possibly the greatest verbal battle in literature. It certainly remains one of the most popular. When de Bourgh demands if Elizabeth is determined to have Darcy, she puts her aristocratic opponent neatly in her place, telling her that she is only determined to act in the interests of her own happiness, without reference to de Bourgh. She will follow her own heart.

You are determined to ruin him in the opinion of all his friends, and make him the contempt of the world.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 56. Obsessed with status, Lady Catherine warns Elizabeth that her marriage to Darcy would bring ruin and contempt upon him. Lady Catherine is a symbol of the class system and the social hierarchy in the England of Austen’s time. Austen is satirizing these here through Lady Catherine’s dismissal of Elizabeth as an inferior who would somehow pollute the upper-class gene pool if she were allowed marry Darcy.

"Neither duty, nor honour, nor gratitude," replied Elizabeth, "have any possible claim on me, in the present instance. No principle of either would be violated by my marriage with Mr. Darcy. And with regard to the resentment of his family, or the indignation of the world, if the former were excited by his marrying me, it would not give me one moment’s concern – and the world in general would have too much sense to join in the scorn."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 56. Elizabeth refuses to bend the knee to the dictatorial Lady Catherine on the matter of a potential marriage to Mr. Darcy. When the great lady accuses her of refusing to "obey the claims of duty, honour, and gratitude," the indomitable and unsubmissive Elizabeth hits the high class bully with this firm and spirited response.

I take no leave of you, Miss. Bennet. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 56. These are Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s rude parting words to Elizabeth, after her surprise appearance at Longbourn. She is unhappy at how Elizabeth stood up to her bullying and threats, especially Elizabeth refusing to promise never to be engaged to Mr. Darcy. So as punishment Lady Catherine refuses to make the usual polite farewells.

It was a rational scheme, to be sure! but from what the report of their engagement could originate, Elizabeth was at a loss to imagine; till she recollected that his being the intimate friend of Bingley, and her being the sister of Jane, was enough, at a time when the expectation of one wedding made everybody eager for another, to supply the idea.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 57. Elizabeth ponders why Lady Catherine took the trouble to journey from Rosings for the sole purpose of breaking off Elizabeth’s supposed engagement with Mr. Darcy. She wonders where the rumor of her engagement came from. She speculates that her sister Jane’s engagement to Mr. Bingley had prompted talk of a Darcy/Elizabeth wedding and that had reached Lady Catherine’s ears through the Collinses.

Mr. Darcy, you see, is the man! Now, Lizzy, I think I have surprised you. Could he or the Lucases have pitched on any man, within the circle of our acquaintance, whose name would have given the lie more effectually to what they related? Mr. Darcy, who never looks at any woman but to see a blemish, and who probably never looked at you in his life! It is admirable!

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 57. Mr. Bennet tells Elizabeth that he has received a letter from Mr. Collins which has astonished him, saying that his daughter Elizabeth will not long bear the name of Bennet. The chosen partner is "one of the most illustrious personages in this land" and that man is Mr. Darcy, Mr. Bennet reveals. The fact that Mr. Bennet thinks the idea of a match between his daughter and Mr. Darcy is ridiculous is an example of dramatic irony. For he is unaware of the growing chemistry and connection that the two share.

After mentioning the likelihood of this marriage to her ladyship last night, she immediately, with her usual condescension, expressed what she felt on the occasion; when it became apparent that, on the score of some family objections on the part of my cousin, she would never give her consent to what she termed so disgraceful a match. I thought it my duty to give the speediest intelligence of this to my cousin, that she and her noble admirer may be aware of what they are about, and not run hastily into a marriage which has not been properly sanctioned.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 57. Mr. Bennet continues reading Mr. Collins’s letter about a rumored marriage between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth. Mr. Collins warns that Lady Catherine would never approve of such a match and urges Elizabeth and her admirer not to rush into this unsanctioned marriage. In Lady Catherine’s eyes marriages between the upper and lower classes is strictly forbidden – by her! She is quite the interfering busybody, aided and abetted by Mr. Collins.

You ought certainly to forgive them as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing.

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 57. Mr. Collins advises Mr. Bennet in his letter that Lydia and Wickham should be shunned, after they ran away together and were finally forced to marry. He notes that they were received at Longbourn following the marriage and hopes that the family will never receive them again. For a clergyman Mr. Collins has an unusual interpretation of Christian forgiveness. Of course he is being ironic without realizing it – his idea of forgiveness is not forgiveness at all. It is also a good example of Mr. Collins being used by Austen as a satirical figure.

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 57. Mr. Bennet is a likeable, funny character. But his witty remarks can be very cynical and sarcastic. His detached irony is, like his library, an escape room where he retreats for sanctuary to insulate himself from family responsibilities. He is a laissez-faire father whose neglect of his parenting duties and continuous ridicule of his wife is partly responsible for Lydia’s disgrace. Mr. Bennet speaks here on the secret of life, that all we are here for is to laugh at our neighbors’ follies and nonsense and they at ours. He makes his ironic comment after a letter from Mr. Collins about a rumored engagement between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth, which he thinks very funny.

That is what makes it amusing. Had they fixed on any other man it would have been nothing; but his perfect indifference, and your pointed dislike, make it so delightfully absurd!

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 57. There is dramatic irony here when Mr. Bennet tries to make light of a letter from Mr. Collins referring to a rumor about a possible engagement between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth. Her father thinks that this is hilarious, in view of what he says are Darcy’s indifference to Elizabeth and her complete dislike of him. Little does he know! His daughter’s feelings towards Darcy are quite the opposite. Elizabeth has strong romantic feelings for him and now regrets refusing his marriage proposal.

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.

She went boldly on with him alone. Now was the moment for her resolution to be executed, and, while her courage was high, she immediately said:
"Mr. Darcy, I am a very selfish creature; and, for the sake of giving relief to my own feelings, care not how much I may be wounding yours. I can no longer help thanking you for your unexampled kindness to my poor sister."

– Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 58. During a walk in the country Elizabeth finds herself alone with Mr. Darcy. She gathers up her courage to thank him for helping her sister Lydia during their family crisis.

"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."
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