Pride and Prejudice

By Jane Austen QUOTATION: You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.
ATTRIBUTION: Jane Austen (1775–1817), British novelist. Mr. Bennet, in Pride and Prejudice, ch. 1 (1813).

QUOTATION: I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as
ever appeared in print.
ATTRIBUTION: Jane Austen (1775–1817), British novelist. Letter, January 29, 1813, to her sister, Cassandra. Jane Austen’s Letters, Oxford University Press (1952).

QUOTATION: Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small for tune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want.
ATTRIBUTION: Jane Austen (1775–1817), British novelist. Charlotte Lucas in Pride and Prejudice, ch. 22 (1813).

QUOTATION: Unhappy as the event must be ... we may draw from it this useful lesson: that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable; that one false step involves her in endless ruin; that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful; and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex.
ATTRIBUTION: Jane Austen (1775–1817), British novelist. Mary Bennet, in Pride and Prejudice, ch. 47 (1813).

QUOTATION: Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other, or ever so similar before-hand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.
ATTRIBUTION: Jane Austen (1775–1817), British novelist. Charlotte Lucas in Pride and Prejudice, ch. 6 (1813).

[1] - [2]