Fanny Burney
Fanny Burney
Frances Burney, also known as Fanny Burney and after her marriage as Madame d'Arblay, was an English novelist, diarist and playwright. She was born in Lynn Regis, now King's Lynn, England, on 13 June 1752, to musical historian Dr. Charles Burneyand Esther Sleepe Burney. The third of six children, she was self-educated and began writing what she called her "scribblings" at the age of ten. In 1793, aged 41, she married a French exile, General Alexandre D'Arblay. Their only son,...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth13 June 1752
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.
Nothing is so delicate as the reputation of a woman; it is at once the most beautiful and most brittle of all human things.
Money is the source of the greatest vice, and that nation which is most rich, is most wicked.
. . . men seldom risk their lives where an escape is without hope of recompense.
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.
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.
I have this very moment finished reading a novel called The Vicar of Wakefield [by Oliver Goldsmith].... It appears to me, to be impossible any person could read this book through with a dry eye and yet, I don't much like it.... There is but very little story, the plot is thin, the incidents very rare, the sentiments uncommon, the vicar is contented, humble, pious, virtuous--but upon the whole the book has not at all satisfied my expectations.
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.
To despise riches, may, indeed, be philosophic, but to dispense them worthily, must surely be more beneficial to mankind.
Never shall I recollect the occasion he gave me of displeasure, without feeling it renewed.
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.
You must learn not only to judge but to act for yourself.
A little alarm now and then keeps life from stagnation.
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.