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.
AGNES REPPLIERThere are few nudities so objectionable as the naked truth.
More Agnes Repplier Quotes
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It is not begging but the beggar, who has forfeited favor with the elect.
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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.
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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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It is bad enough to be bad, but to be bad in bad taste is unpardonable.
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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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But self-satisfaction, if as buoyant as gas, has an ugly trick of collapsing when full blown, and facts are stony things that refuse to melt away in the sunshine of a smile.
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If we go to church we are confronted with a system of begging so complicated and so resolute that all other demands sink into insignificance by its side.
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The party which is out sees nothing but graft and incapacity in the party which is in; and the party which is in sees nothing but greed and animosity in the party which is out.
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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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The sanguine assurance that men and nations can be legislated into goodness, that pressure from without is equivalent to a moral change within, needs a strong backing of inexperience.
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History is, and has always been trameled by facts. It may ignore some and deny others; but it cannot accommodate itself unreservedly to theories; it cannot be stripped of things evidenced in favor of things surmised.
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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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He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion. Our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage.
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This is the sphinx of the hearthstone, the little god of domesticity, whose presence turns a house into a home.
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A world of vested interests is not a world which welcomes the disruptive force of candor.
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the labors of the true critic are more essential to the author, even, than to the reader.
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Life is so full of miseries, minor and major; they press so close upon us at every step of the way, that it is hardly worthwhile to call one another’s attention to their presence.
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Laughter springs from the lawless part of our nature, and is purifying only in so far as there is a natural and unschooled goodness in the human heart.
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People fed on sugared praises cannot be expected to feel an appetite for the black broth of honest criticism.
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Miserliness is the one vice that grows stronger with increasing years. It yields its sordid pleasures to the end.
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There is a secret and wholesome conviction in the heart of every man or woman who has written a book that it should be no easy matter for an intelligent reader to lay down that book unfinished. There is a pardonable impression among reviewers that half an hour in its company is sufficient.
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Cats, even when robust, have scant liking for the boisterous society of children, and are apt to exert their utmost ingenuity to escape it. Nor are they without adult sympathy in their prejudice.
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The diseases of the present have little in common with the diseases of the past save that we die of them.
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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.
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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 worst in life, we are told, is compatible with the best in art. So too the worst in life is compatible with the best in humour.
AGNES REPPLIER