Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.

Jane Austen Emma (1815), Volume III, Chapter 13 Verified source · How we source quotes
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Austen's narrator makes this remark in Emma, Volume III, chapter 13, just after Mr Knightley proposes and Emma accepts him. Emma has not told him everything she thought and did. The narrator admits that complete truth rarely belongs to any confession, then adds that where the conduct is mistaken but the feelings are not, it may not matter much.

Source: Emma (1815), Volume III, Chapter 13

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