The essence of humor is that it should be unexpected, that it should embody an element of surprise, that it should startle us out of that reasonable gravity which, after all, must be our habitual frame of mind.
AGNES REPPLIERA kitten is chiefly remarkable for rushing about like mad at nothing whatever and generally stopping before it gets there.
More Agnes Repplier Quotes
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Books that children read but once are of scant service to them; those that have really helped to warm our imaginations and to train our faculties are the few old friends we know so well that they have become a portion of our thinking selves.
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Next to the joy of the egotist is the joy of the detractor.
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The perfectly natural thing to do with an unreadable book is to give it away; and the publication, for more than a quarter of a century, of volumes which fulfilled this one purpose and no other is a pleasant proof, if proof were needed, of the business principles which underlay the enlightened activity of publishers.
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The gayety of life, like the beauty and the moral worth of life, is a saving grace, which to ignore is folly, and to destroy is crime. There is no more than we need; there is barely enough to go round.
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It is not the office of a novelist to show us how to behave ourselves; it is not the business of fiction to teach us anything.
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the pleasure of possession, whether we possess trinkets, or offspring – or possibly books, or prints, or chessmen, or postage stamps – lies in showing these things to friends who are experiencing no immediate urge to look at them.
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Art… does not take kindly to facts, is helpless to grapple with theories, and is killed outright by a sermon.
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Conversation between Adam and Eve must have been difficult at times, because they had nobody to talk about.
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To be brave in misfortune is to be worthy of manhood; to be wise in misfortune is to conquer fate.
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The English possess too many agreeable traits to permit them to be as much disliked as they think and hope they are.
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People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization.
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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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Woman is quick to revere genius, but in her secret soul she seldom loves it.
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Philadelphians are every whit as mediocre as their neighbors, but they seldom encourage each other in mediocrity by giving it a more agreeable name.
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Humor hardens the heart, at least to the point of sanity.
AGNES REPPLIER