There are few people whom I really love and still fewer of whom I think well.

If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember that it was to persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk. When I yielded, I thought it was to duty; but no duty could be called in aid here. In marrying a man indifferent to me, all risk would have been incurred and all duty violated.

In a letter from Bath to her sister, Cassandra, one senses her frustration at her sheltered existence, Tuesday, 12 May 1801. Another stupid party . . . with six people to look on, and talk nonsense to each other.

No- I cannot talk of books in a ballroom; my head is always full of something else.

What do you know of my heart? What do you know of anything but your own suffering?

You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.

I pay very little regard...to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person.