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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
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More quotes by 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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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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How little has situation to do with happiness.
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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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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This perpetual round of constrained civilities to persons quite indifferent to us, is the most provoking and tiresome thing in theworld, but it is unavoidable in a country town, where everybody is known.... 'Tis a most shocking and unworthy way of spending our precious irrecoverable time, to those who know not its value.
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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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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while we all desire to live long, we have all a horror of being old!
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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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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No man is in love when he marries. He may have loved before I have even heard he has sometimes loved after: but at the time never. There is something in the formalities of the matrimonial preparations that drive away all the little cupidons.
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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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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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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I cannot sleep - great joy is as restless as sorrow.
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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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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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