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.
AGNES REPPLIEROur belief in education is unbounded, our reverence for it is unfaltering, our loyalty to it is unshaken by reverses. Our passionate desire, not so much to acquire it as to bestow it, is the most animated of American traits.
More Agnes Repplier Quotes
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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.
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Letters form a by-path of literature, a charming, but occasional, retreat for people of cultivated leisure.
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History is not written in the interests of morality.
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Where there is no temptation, there is no virtue.
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It is bad enough to be bad, but to be bad in bad taste is unpardonable.
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What 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!
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The most charming thing about youth is the tenacity of its impressions.
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A vast deal of ingenuity is wasted every year in evoking the undesirable, in the careful construction of objects which burden life. Frankenstein was a large rather than an isolated example.
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Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements.
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It has been wisely said that we cannot really love anybody at whom we never laugh.
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The comfortable thing about the study of history is that it inclines us to think hopefully of our own times.
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A world of vested interests is not a world which welcomes the disruptive force of candor.
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Letter-writing on the part of a busy man or woman is the quintessence of generosity.
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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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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