“It is truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a large fortune is in want of a wife!”

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

“It's a truth universally acknowledged...”

“Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!”

“But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them.”

“Mrs. Parker was as evidently a gentle, amiable, sweet-tempered woman, the properest wife in the world for a man of strong understanding but not of a capacity to supply the cooler reflection which her own husband sometimes needed; and so entirely waiting to be guided on every occasion that whether he was risking his fortune or spraining his ankle, she remained equally useless.”

“it does not often happen that the interference of friends will persuade a young man of independent fortune to think no more of a girl.”