Fanny Burney

“To be neglected is a thing I could never bear.”

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

“The world is so full of ill-nature, that a person who has any modesty must be naturally rather silent.”

“A great deal of pride, which is a sort of substitute for dignity, is now required to keep us from being mean.”

“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.”

“Humour is the growth of every soil, but the delicacy of it, which is its essence, is propagated with great difficulty.”

“There is nothing so delicate as the reputation of a woman; it is at once the most beautiful and the most brittle of all human things.”

“And what is so intricate, so bewildering, as the human heart?”

“Sorrow is the lot of all, and pride and anger are the punishers of all.”

“The rage for admiration is the most vehement of all our passions.”

“What a difficult thing it is to be a woman! A young woman, a woman of education and family, a woman who has been brought up to be respectable.”