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to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.

Fanny Burney

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Fanny Burney
Expectation
Diminish
Enjoyment
Expectations
Increase

More quotes by Fanny Burney

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We relate all our afflictions more frequently than we do our pleasures.
Fanny Burney
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falsehood is not more unjustifiable than unsafe.
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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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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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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don't be angry with the gentleman for thinking, whatever be the cause, for I assure you he makes no common practice of offending in that way.
Fanny Burney
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To save the mind from preying inwardly upon itself, it must be encouraged to some outward pursuit. There is no other way to elude apathy, or escape discontent none other to guard the temper from that quarrel with itself, which ultimately ends in quarreling with all mankind.
Fanny Burney
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Generosity without delicacy, like wit without judgment, generally gives as much pain as pleasure.
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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I'd rather be done any thing to than laughed at, for, to my mind, it's one or other the disagreeablest thing in the world.
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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I cannot sleep - great joy is as restless as sorrow.
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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Can any thing, my good Sir, be more painful to a friendly mind than a necessity of communicating disagreeable intelligence? Indeed, it is sometimes difficult to determine, whether the relater or the receiver of evil tidings is most to be pitied.
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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it has been long and justly remarked, that folly has ever sought alliance with beauty.
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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To a heart formed for friendship and affection the charms of solitude are very short-lived.
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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To despise riches, may, indeed, be philosophic, but to dispense them worthily, must surely be more beneficial to mankind.
Fanny Burney