Pride and Prejudice: Key Quotes

Elizabeth:

• "She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me; I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men."
  -Darcy About Elizabeth: Volume I: Chapter 3

• "I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine."
  -Elizabeth about Darcy, Volume I:  Chapter 5
• "I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any."
  -Elizabeth to Darcy, Volume I: Chapter 8
• "She could not be insensible to the compliment of such a man's affection, and though her intentions did not vary for an instant, she was at first sorry for the pain he was to receive; till, roused to resentment by his subsequent language, she lost all compassion in anger... He spoke of apprehension and anxiety, but his countenance expressed real security...I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly...The feelings which, you tell me, have long prevented the acknowledgment of your regard, can have little difficulty in overcoming it after this explanation."
  -Elizabeth to Darcy, Volume I: Chapter 11

• "You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it."
  -Elizabeth to Darcy, Volume  II: Chapter 11

• "How despicably I have acted!... But vanity, not love, has been my folly...I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away...Till this moment I never knew myself."
  - Elizabeth, Volume II: Chapter 13

• ""In essentials, I believe, he is very much what he ever was."
  -Elizabeth to Wickham regarding Darcy, Volume II: Chapter 13

• "Your defect is a propensity to hate everybody. "And yours," he replied with a smile, "is willfully to misunderstand them.”"
  -Elizabeth and Darcy, Chapter 

Darcy:

• "She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me; I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men."
  -Darcy About Elizabeth, Volume I: Chapter 3
• "Darcy was clever. He was at the same time haughty, reserved, and fastidious, and his manners, though well-bred, were not inviting."
  -Narrator, Volume I: Chapter 4
• " Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty... But no sooner had he made it clear to himself...that she hardly had a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes."
  -Narrator, Volume I: Chapter 6
• "I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow."
  -Darcy to Miss. Bingley, Volume I:Chapter 6
• Elizabeth's astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured, doubted, and was silent. This he considered sufficient encouragement; and the avowal of all that he felt...immediately followed. He spoke well; but there were feelings besides those of the heart to be detailed... His sense of her inferiority—of its being a degradation—of the family obstacles which judgement had always opposed to…