# Quote — Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

> "Miss Bennet I am shocked and astonished. I expected to find a more reasonable young woman. But do not deceive yourself into a belief that I will ever recede. I shall not go away till you have given me the assurance I require."
>
> "And I certainly never shall give it. I am not to be intimidated into anything so wholly unreasonable. Your ladyship wants Mr. Darcy to marry your daughter; but would my giving you the wished-for promise make their marriage at all more probable? Supposing him to be attached to me, would my refusing to accept his hand make him wish to bestow it on his cousin? Allow me to say, Lady Catherine, that the arguments with which you have supported this extraordinary application have been as frivolous as the application was ill-judged. You have widely mistaken my character, if you think I can be worked on by such persuasions as these. How far your nephew might approve of your interference in his affairs, I cannot tell; but you have certainly no right to concern yourself in mine. I must beg, therefore, to be importuned no farther on the subject."

- Author: [Jane Austen](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-austen.md)
- Book: [Pride and Prejudice](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-austen/pride-and-prejudice.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pride_and_Prejudice#Chapters_51-60) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-austen/pride-and-prejudice/miss-bennet-i-am-shocked

## More from this book

> "“The death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison of this … They agree with me in apprehending that this false step in one daughter will be injurious to the fortunes of all the others; for who, as Lady Catherine herself condescendingly says, will connect themselves with such a family?”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-austen/pride-and-prejudice/the-death-of-your.md)

> "When I consider," she added, in a yet more agitated voice, "that I might have prevented it! — I who knew what he was. Had I but explained some part of it only — some part of what I learnt — to my own family! Had his character been known, this could not have happened. But it is all, all too late now."

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-austen/pride-and-prejudice/when-i-consider.md)

> "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.”

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-austen/pride-and-prejudice/loss-of-virtue.md)