Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Fanny Burney
Woman
Beautiful
Human
Humans
Nothing
Things
Brittle
Delicate
Reputation

More quotes by Fanny Burney

Image
such is the effect of true politeness, that it banishes all restraint and embarassment.
Fanny Burney
Image
There si nothing upon the face of the earth so insipid as a medium. Give me love or hate! A friend that will go to jail for me, or an enemy that will run me through the body!
Fanny Burney
Image
Far from having taken any positive step, I have not yet even fommed any resolution.
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
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!
Fanny Burney
Image
. . . men seldom risk their lives where an escape is without hope of recompense.
Fanny Burney
Image
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
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Generosity without delicacy, like wit without judgment, generally gives as much pain as pleasure.
Fanny Burney
Image
We continually say things to support an opinion, which we have given, that in reality we don't above half mean.
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
To a heart formed for friendship and affection the charms of solitude are very short-lived.
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
Childhood is never troubled with foresight.
Fanny Burney
Image
A little alarm now and then keeps life from stagnation.
Fanny Burney
Image
while we all desire to live long, we have all a horror of being old!
Fanny Burney
Image
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
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