A man who listens because he has nothing to say can hardly be a source of inspiration. The only listening that counts is that of the talker who alternately absorbs and expresses ideas.
AGNES REPPLIERWhile art may instruct as well as please, it can nevertheless be true art without instructing, but not without pleasing.
More Agnes Repplier Quotes
-
-
Every misused word revenges itself forever upon a writer’s reputation.
AGNES REPPLIER -
Humor hardens the heart, at least to the point of sanity.
AGNES REPPLIER -
Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements.
AGNES REPPLIER -
There are many ways of asking a favor; but to assume that you are granting the favor that you ask shows spirit and invention.
AGNES REPPLIER -
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.
AGNES REPPLIER -
fair play is less characteristic of groups than of individuals.
AGNES REPPLIER -
If everybody floated with the tide of talk, placidity would soon end in stagnation. It is the strong backward stroke which stirs the ripples, and gives animation and variety.
AGNES REPPLIER -
A kitten is the most irresistible comedian in the world. Its wide-open eyes gleam with wonder and mirth. It darts madly at nothing at all, and then, as though suddenly checked in the pursuit, prances sideways on its hind legs with ridiculous agility and zeal.
AGNES REPPLIER -
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 REPPLIER -
The universality of a custom is pledge of its worth.
AGNES REPPLIER -
Wit is a pleasure-giving thing, largely because it eludes reason; but in the apprehension of an absurdity through the working of the comic spirit there is a foundation of reason, and an impetus to human companionship.
AGNES REPPLIER -
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.
AGNES REPPLIER -
Neatness of phrase is so closely akin to wit that it is often accepted as its substitute.
AGNES REPPLIER -
It is not what we learn in conversation that enriches us. It is the elation that comes of swift contact with tingling currents of thought.
AGNES REPPLIER -
The least practical of us have some petty thrift dear to our hearts, some one direction in which we love to scrimp.
AGNES REPPLIER