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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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Fanny Burney
Laughed
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More quotes by Fanny Burney

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to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.
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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falsehood is not more unjustifiable than unsafe.
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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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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Far from having taken any positive step, I have not yet even fommed any resolution.
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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But authors before they write should read.
Fanny Burney
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To have some account of my thoughts, manners, acquaintance and actions, when the hour arrives in which time is more nimble than memory, is the reason which induces me to keep a journal: a journal in which I must confess my every thought, must open my whole heart!
Fanny Burney
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I wish the opera was every night. It is, of all entertainments, the sweetest and most delightful. Some of the songs seemed to melt my very 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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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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To a heart formed for friendship and affection the charms of solitude are very short-lived.
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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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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To save the mind from preying inwardly upon itself, it must be encouraged to some outward pursuit.
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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an old woman ... is a person who has no sense of decency if once she takes to living, the devil himself can't get rid of her.
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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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