Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Fanny Burney
Way
Value
Indifferent
Irrecoverable
Time
Quite
Perpetual
Constrained
Everybody
Precious
Unavoidable
Known
Round
Tiresome
Values
Rounds
Civility
Persons
Town
Unworthy
Country
Towns
Provoking
Thing
Spending
Shocking
Civilities

More quotes by Fanny Burney

Image
to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.
Fanny Burney
Image
falsehood is not more unjustifiable than unsafe.
Fanny Burney
Image
But authors before they write should read.
Fanny Burney
Image
Childhood is never troubled with foresight.
Fanny Burney
Image
Generosity without delicacy, like wit without judgment, generally gives as much pain as pleasure.
Fanny Burney
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Insensibility, of all kinds, and on all occasions, most moves my imperial displeasure
Fanny Burney
Image
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
Image
Misery is a guest that we are glad to part with, however certain of her speedy return.
Fanny Burney
Image
Far from having taken any positive step, I have not yet even fommed any resolution.
Fanny Burney
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
People who live together naturally catch the looks and air of one another and without having one feature alike, they contract a something in the whole countenance which strikes one as a resemblance
Fanny Burney
Image
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
Image
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
Image
such is the effect of true politeness, that it banishes all restraint and embarassment.
Fanny Burney
Image
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
Image
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