English novelist & playwright (1752-1840)
When once--which every body must be--you are convinced of the wickedness and deceit of men, it is impossible to preserve untainted your own innocence of heart.
FANNY BURNEY
The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney
It is sometimes dangerous to make requests to men, who are too desirous of receiving them.
FRANCES BURNEY
Evelina
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
Evelina
It has been long and justly remarked, that folly has ever sought alliance with beauty.
FRANCES BURNEY
Evelina
It seldom happens that a man, though extolled as a saint, is really without blemish; or that another, though reviled as a devil, is really without humanity.
FANNY BURNEY
Evelina
To despise riches may, indeed, be philosophic; but to dispense them worthily must, surely, be more beneficial to mankind.
FRANCES BURNEY
Evelina
Money is the source of the greatest vice, and that nation which is most rich, is most wicked.
FANNY BURNEY
The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney
Let me counsel you to remember that a lady, whether so called from birth or only from fortune, should never degrade herself by being put on a level with writers, and such sort of people.
FANNY BURNEY
Cecilia
Why he's a poet, you know, so he may live upon learning.
FANNY BURNEY
Evelina
We are almost all, my good General, of a nature so pitifully plastic, that we act from circumstance, and are fashioned by situation.
FRANCES BURNEY
Camilla
A youthful mind is seldom totally free from ambition; to curb that, is the first step to contentment, since to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.
FANNY BURNEY
Evelina
You are made a slave in a moment by the world, if you don't begin life by defying it.
FANNY BURNEY
Camilla
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
Evelina
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.
FANNY BURNEY
Evelina
He has no more manners than a bear.
FANNY BURNEY
Evelina
One indulgence alone from time to time I allow myself -- 'tis Music! which has power to delight me even to rapture! it quiets all anxiety, it carries me out of myself, I forget through it every calamity, even the bitterest anguish.
FANNY BURNEY
Cecilia
Pleasure given in society, like money lent in usury, returns with interest to those who dispense it.
FANNY BURNEY
Cecilia
Unused to the situations in which I find myself, and embarrassed by the slightest difficulties, I seldom, till too late, discover how I ought to act.
FANNY BURNEY
Evelina
Generosity without delicacy, like wit without judgement, generally gives as much pain as pleasure.
FRANCES BURNEY
Evelina