the most comfortable characteristic of the period [1775-1825], and the one which incites our deepest envy, is the universal willingness to accept a good purpose as a substitute for good work.
AGNES REPPLIERWhat monstrous absurdities and paradoxes have resisted whole batteries of serious arguments, and then crumbled swiftly into dust before the ringing death-knell of a laugh!
More Agnes Repplier Quotes
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Personally, I do not believe that it is the duty of any man or woman to write a novel. In nine cases out of ten, there would be greater merit in leaving it unwritten.
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the tea-hour is the hour of peace … strife is lost in the hissing of the kettle – a tranquilizing sound, second only to the purring of a cat.
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The dog is guided by kindly instinct to the man or woman whose heart is open to his advances. The cat often leaves the friend who courts her, to honor, or to harass, the unfortunate mortal who shudders at her unwelcome caresses.
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People with theories of life are, perhaps, the most relentless of their kind, for no time or place is sacred from their devastating elucidations.
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There was no escape from the letter-writer who, a hundred or a hundred and twenty-five years ago, captured a coveted correspondent. It would have been as easy to shake off an octopus or a boa-constrictor.
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The soul begins to travel when the child begins to think.
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A real dog, beloved and therefore pampered by his mistress, is a lamentable spectacle. He suffers from fatty degeneration of his moral being.
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It takes time and trouble to persuade ourselves that the things we want to do are the things we ought to do.
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Science may carry us to Mars, but it will leave the earth peopled as ever by the inept.
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The thinkers of the world should by rights be guardians of the world’s mirth.
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No rural community, no suburban community, can ever possess the distinctive qualities that city dwellers have for centuries given to the world.
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It has been well said that tea is suggestive of a thousand wants, from which spring the decencies and luxuries of civilization.
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It was hard to speed the male child up the stony heights of erudition, but it was harder still to check the female child at the crucial point, and keep her tottering decorously behind her brother.
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fair play is less characteristic of groups than of individuals.
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The audience is the controlling factor in the actor’s life. It is practically infallible, since there is no appeal from its verdict. It is a little like a supreme court composed of irresponsible minors.
AGNES REPPLIER






