Frances Burney Quotes

83 Sourced Quotes

To whom, then, must I dedicate my wonderful, surprising and interesting adventures? — to whom dare I reveal my private opinion of my nearest relations? the secret thoughts of my dearest friends? my own hopes, fears, reflections and dislikes? — Nobody!

Frances Burney
I am ashamed of confessing that I have nothing to confess.

Frances Burney
I cannot sleep — great joy is as restless as sorrow.

Frances Burney
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

Frances Burney
But if the young are never tired of erring in conduct, neither are the older in erring of judgment.

Frances Burney
The mind is but too naturally prone to pleasure, but too easily yielded to dissipation.

Frances Burney
To despise riches, may, indeed, be philosophic, but to dispense them worthily, must surely be more beneficial to mankind.

Frances Burney
Traveling is the ruin of all happiness! There's no looking at a building after seeing Italy.

Frances Burney
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.

Frances Burney
.. men seldom risk their lives where an escape is without hope of recompense.

Frances Burney
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.

Frances Burney
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!

Frances Burney
She has not even a natural good voice to excuse her miserable performance; on the contrary, it is a croak, a squeak, and Nature has been as little her friend as Art has been her assistant.

Frances Burney
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.

Frances Burney
Nothing is so delicate as the reputation of a woman; it is at once the most beautiful and most brittle of all human things.

Frances Burney
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.

Frances Burney
The play of imagination, in the romance of early youth, is rarely interrupted with scruples of probability.

Frances Burney
Look at your [English] ladies of quality—are they not forever parting with their husbands—forfeiting their reputations—and is their life aught but dissipation? In common genteel life, indeed, you may now and then meet with very fine girls—who have politeness, sense and conversation—but these are few—and then look at your trademen's daughters—what are they?—poor creatures indeed! all pertness, imitation and folly.

Frances Burney
I am too inexperienced and ignorant to conduct myself with propriety in this town, where every thing is new to me, and many things are unaccountable and perplexing.

Frances Burney
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.

Frances Burney
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.

Frances Burney
Travelling is the ruin of all happiness! There's no looking at a building here after seeing Italy.

Frances Burney
To be sure, marriage is all in all with the ladies; but with us gentlemen it's quite another thing!

Frances Burney
Such is the effect of true politeness, that it banishes all restraint and embarrassment.

Frances Burney
'Do you come to the play without knowing what it is?' 'O yes, Sir, yes, very frequently; I have no time to read play-bills; one merely comes to meet one's friends, and show that one's alive.'

Frances Burney
O! how short a time does it take to put an end to a woman's liberty!
Of a wedding

Frances Burney
O, we all acknowledge our faults, now; 'tis the mode of the day: but the acknowledgement passes for current payment; and therefore we never amend them.

Frances Burney
'No, Madam,' cried I, '—only—only I did not know that gentleman,—and so,—and so I thought—I intended—I—'
Overpowered by all that had passed, I had not strength to make my mortifying explanation; — my spirits quite failed me, and I burst into tears.

Frances Burney
Generosity without delicacy, like wit without judgment, generally gives as much pain as pleasure.

Frances Burney
Credulity is the sister of innocence...

Frances Burney