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I cannot be much pleased without an appearance of truth at least of possibility I wish the history to be natural though the sentiments are refined and the characters to be probable, though their behaviour is excelling

Fanny Burney

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Fanny Burney
Truth
Characters
Character
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Natural
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More quotes by Fanny Burney

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A little alarm now and then keeps life from stagnation.
Fanny Burney
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to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.
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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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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Well of all things in the world, I don't suppose anything can be so dreadful as a public wedding--my stars!--I should never be able to support it!
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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while we all desire to live long, we have all a horror of being old!
Fanny Burney
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Credulity is the sister of innocence.
Fanny Burney
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Imagination took the reins, and reason, slow-paced, though sure-footed, was unequal to a race with so eccentric and flighty a companion.
Fanny Burney
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Tired, ashamed, and mortified, I begged to sit down till we returned home, which I did soon after. Lord Orville did me the honour to hand me to the coach, talking all the way of the honour I had done him ! O these fashionable people!
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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The Spring is generally fertile in new acquaintances.
Fanny Burney
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Childhood is never troubled with foresight.
Fanny Burney
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How little has situation to do with happiness.
Fanny Burney
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You have sensible women here [in England] but then, they are very devils--censorious, uncharitable, sarcastic--the women in Scotland have twice--thrice their freedom, with all their virtue--and are very conversable and agreeable--their educations are more finished.
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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To a heart formed for friendship and affection the charms of solitude are very short-lived.
Fanny Burney
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such is the effect of true politeness, that it banishes all restraint and embarassment.
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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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