It is a truth universally acknowledged

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 1

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice. Learn it by heart on Slate.

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

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.