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.
- Source
- Pride and Prejudice, ch. 5 (vol. 1, ch. 5)
- Written
- 1813
About this quotation
It is Mary Bennet, the plain middle sister who likes to moralise from her reading, who says this as the Bennet and Lucas families talk over the assembly ball. Austen lets the remark stand, but she also lets the novel test both qualities, in Darcy and in Elizabeth.