Discussion without asperity, sympathy with fusion, gayety unracked by too abundant jests, mental ease in approaching one another; these are the things which give a pleasant smoothness to the rough edge of life.
AGNES REPPLIERWit is artificial; humor is natural. Wit is accidental; humor is inevitable. Wit is born of conscious effort; humor, of the allotted ironies of fate. Wit can be expressed only in language; humor can be developed sufficiently in situation.
More Agnes Repplier Quotes
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It is impossible for a lover of cats to banish these alert, gentle, and discriminating friends, who give us just enough of their regard and complaisance to make us hunger for more.
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to be civilized is to be incapable of giving unnecessary offense, it is to have some quality of consideration for all who cross our path.
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There are many ways of asking a favor; but to assume that you are granting the favor that you ask shows spirit and invention.
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The choice of a topic which will bear analysis and support enthusiasm, is essential to the enjoyment of conversation.
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There is a natural limit to the success we wish our friends, even when we have spurred them on their way.
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There is no illusion so permanent as that which enables us to look backward with complacency; there is no mental process so deceptive as the comparing of recollections with realities.
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The man who never tells an unpalatable truth ‘at the wrong time’ (the right time has yet to be discovered) is the man whose success in life is fairly well assured.
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For indeed all that we think so new to-day has been acted over and over again, a shifting comedy, by the women of every century.
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Innovations to which we are not committed are illuminating things.
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The friendships of nations, built on common interests, cannot survive the mutability of those interests.
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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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Now the pessimist proper is the most modest of men. … under no circumstances does he presume to imagine that he, a mere unit of pain, can in any degree change or soften the remorseless words of fate.
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The pessimist is seldom an agitating individual. His creed breeds indifference to others, and he does not trouble himself to thrust his views upon the unconvinced.
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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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It is impossible to withhold education from the receptive mind, as it is impossible to force it upon the unreasoning.
AGNES REPPLIER