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We continually say things to support an opinion, which we have given, that in reality we don't above half mean.

Fanny Burney

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Fanny Burney
Opinion
Support
Half
Given
Reality
Mean
Things
Continually

More quotes by Fanny Burney

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In England, I was quite struck to see how forward the girls are made--a child of 10 years old, will chat and keep you company, while her parents are busy or out etc.--with the ease of a woman of 26. But then, how does this education go on?--Not at all: it absolutely stops short.
Fanny Burney
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For my part, I confess I seldom listen to the players: one has so much to do, in looking about and finding out one's acquaintance, that, really, one has no time to mind the stage. One merely comes to meet one's friends, and show that one's alive.
Fanny Burney
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to be sure, marriage is all in all with the ladies but with us gentlemen it's quite another thing!
Fanny Burney
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Unused to the situations in which I find myself, and embarassed by the slightest difficulties, I seldom discover, till too late, how I ought to act.
Fanny Burney
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I am tired to death! tired of every thing! I would give the universe for a disposition less difficult to please. Yet, after all, what is there to give pleasure? When one has seen one thing, one has seen every thing.
Fanny Burney
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Nothing is so delicate as the reputation of a woman it is at once the most beautiful and most brittle of all human things.
Fanny Burney
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She [Evelina] is not, indeed, like most modern young ladies to be known in half an hour her modest worth, and fearful excellence, require both time and encouragement to show themselves.
Fanny Burney
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I love and honour [Paulus Aemilius, in Plutarch's Lives], for his fondness for his children, which instead of blushing at, he avows and glories in: and that at an age, when almost all the heros and great men thought that to make their children and family a secondary concern, was the first proof of their superiority and greatness of soul.
Fanny Burney
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The laws of custom make our [returning a visit] necessary. O how I hate this vile custom which obliges us to make slaves of ourselves! to sell the most precious property we boast, our time--and to sacrifice it to every prattling impertinent who chooses to demand it!
Fanny Burney
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. . . men seldom risk their lives where an escape is without hope of recompense.
Fanny Burney
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the right line of conduct is the same for both sexes, though the manner in which it is pursued, may somewhat vary, and be accommodated to the strength or weakness of the different travelers.
Fanny Burney
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How truly does this journal contain my real and undisguised thoughts--I always write it according to the humour I am in, and if astranger was to think it worth reading, how capricious--insolent & whimsical I must appear!--one moment flighty and half mad,--the next sad and melancholy. No matter! Its truth and simplicity are its sole recommendations.
Fanny Burney
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Far from having taken any positive step, I have not yet even fommed any resolution.
Fanny Burney
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There si nothing upon the face of the earth so insipid as a medium. Give me love or hate! A friend that will go to jail for me, or an enemy that will run me through the body!
Fanny Burney
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To save the mind from preying inwardly upon itself, it must be encouraged to some outward pursuit.
Fanny Burney
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A little alarm now and then keeps life from stagnation.
Fanny Burney
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Insensibility, of all kinds, and on all occasions, most moves my imperial displeasure
Fanny Burney
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When young people are too rigidly sequestered from [the world], their lively and romantic imaginations paint it to them as a paradise of which they have been beguiled but when they are shown it properly, and in due time, they see it such as it really is, equally shared by pain and pleasure, hope and disappointment.
Fanny Burney
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A youthful mind is seldom totally free from ambition to curb that, is the first step to contentment, since to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.
Fanny Burney
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O! how short a time does it take to put an end to a woman's liberty!
Fanny Burney