Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.

“I often think,” said she, “that there is nothing so bad as parting with one's friends. One seems so forlorn without them.”

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

A very narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper. Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small, and generally very inferior, society, may well be illiberal and cross.

I do assure you, Sir, that I have no pretension whatever of that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere. I thank you again and again for the honour you have done me in your proposals, but to accept them is absolutely impossible. My feelings in every respect forbid it. Can I speak plainer? Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.

Could there be finer symptoms? Is not general incivility the very essence of love?

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.