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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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Fanny Burney
Law
Sell
Returning
Hate
Sells
Custom
Every
Slave
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Make
Property
Boast
Time
Laws
Slaves
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Obliges
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Precious
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falsehood is not more unjustifiable than unsafe.
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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.
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Credulity is the sister of innocence.
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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
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.
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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!
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Generosity without delicacy, like wit without judgment, generally gives as much pain as pleasure.
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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
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Childhood is never troubled with foresight.
Fanny Burney
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Money is the source of the greatest vice, and that nation which is most rich, is most wicked.
Fanny Burney
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Far from having taken any positive step, I have not yet even fommed any resolution.
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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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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!
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it has been long and justly remarked, that folly has ever sought alliance with beauty.
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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.
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I cannot sleep - great joy is as restless as sorrow.
Fanny Burney