Camilla Quotes

“The world...is too full of real evil for me at least, to cause one moment of unnecessary uneasiness to any of its poor pilgrims. 'Tis strange...that this is not more generally considered, since the advantage would be so reciprocal from man to man. But wrapt up in our own short moment, we forget our neighbour's long hour! and existence is ultimately embittered to all, by the refined susceptibility for ourselves that monopolizes our feelings.”
― Frances Burney, Camilla

“Were you ever in love, Clarendel? speak the truth. I am just seized with a passionate desire to know.’

‘Why . . . yes.. ‘ answered he, pulling his lips with his fingers, ‘I think–I rather think. . . . I was once.’

‘O tell! tell! tell!’

‘Nay, I am not very positive. One hears it is to happen; and one is put upon thinking of it, while so very young, that one soon takes it for granted. Define it a little, and I can answer you more accurately. Pray, is it any thing beyond being very fond, and very silly, with a little touch of melancholy?”
― Fanny Burney, Camilla

“No one single quality is perhaps so endearing, from man to man, as good nature. Talents excite more admiration; wisdom, more respect; and virtue, more esteem; but with admiration envy is apt to mingle, and fear with respect; while esteem, though always honourable, is often cold: but good-nature gives pleasure without any allay; ease, confidence, and happy carelessness, without the pain of obligation, without the exertion of gratitude.”
― Frances Burney, Camilla

“You are made a slave in a moment by the world, if you don't begin life by defying it.”
― Frances Burney, Camilla

“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

“Her husband besought her to be guarded: ‘We had no right,’ he said, ‘to the disposal of his heart; and Indiana, however he may find her inadequate to his future expectations, will not disgrace his present choice. She is beautiful, she is young, and she is innocent; this in early life is sufficient for felicity; and Edgar is yet too new in the world to be aware how much of life remains when youth is gone, and too unpracticed to foresee, that beauty loses its power even before it loses its charms, and that the season of declining nature sighs deeply for the support which sympathy and intelligence can alone bestow.”
― Frances Burney, Camilla