Pride and Prejudice Love Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #10

Her astonishment, however, was extreme, and continually was she repeating, "Why is he so altered? From what can it proceed? It cannot be for me—it cannot be for my sake that his manners are thus softened. My reproofs at Hunsford could not work such a change as this. It is impossible that he should still love me." (43.60)

You know we like to say that you should never change yourself for someone else? Yeah, Austen doesn't agree. You definitely should change yourself for the person you love—as long as the person you love is trying to make you a better person rather than make you start dressing all preppy.

Quote #11

"Design! Nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that he may fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as soon as he comes." (1.19)

To Mrs. Bennet, "love" is more about proximity than compatibility. Mr. Bingley is "likely" to fall in love with her daughters because (1) he's going to be nearby, and (2) he's rich and single, and they're female and single. With criteria like that, no wonder her marriage is so awful.

Quote #12

She had always felt that Charlotte's opinion of matrimony was not exactly like her own, but she had not supposed it to be possible that, when called into action, she would have sacrificed every better feeling to worldly advantage. Charlotte the wife of Mr. Collins was a most humiliating picture! And to the pang of a friend disgracing herself and sunk in her esteem, was added the distressing conviction that it was impossible for that friend to be tolerably happy in the lot she had chosen. (22.18)

We don't find out exactly what Lizzy's opinion of matrimony is, but we suspect that it doesn't include essentially prostituting yourself to an idiot in order to have your own house. But let's be real: Lizzy is twenty and pretty. Charlotte is twenty-seven and plain. If Lizzy were in the same situation that Charlotte is, she might not feel so idealistic.