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.
AGNES REPPLIERThe 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.
More Agnes Repplier Quotes
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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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English civilization rests largely upon tea and cricket, with mighty spurts of enjoyment on Derby Day, and at Newmarket.
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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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It is in his pleasure that a man really lives.
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Letter-writing on the part of a busy man or woman is the quintessence of generosity.
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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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The clear-sighted do not rule the world, but they sustain and console it.
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Love is a malady, the common symptoms of which are the same in all patients.
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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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Lovers of the town have been content, for the most part, to say they loved it. They do not brag about its uplifting qualities. They have none of the infernal smugness which makes the lover of the country insupportable.
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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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People fed on sugared praises cannot be expected to feel an appetite for the black broth of honest criticism.
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There is nothing in the world so incomprehensible as the joke we do not see.
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The most charming thing about youth is the tenacity of its impressions.
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Humor brings insight and tolerance.
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Traveling is, and has always been, more popular than the traveler.
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There is no liberal education for the under-languaged.
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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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It is impossible to withhold education from the receptive mind, as it is impossible to force it upon the unreasoning.
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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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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 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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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.
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It is not depravity that afflicts the human race so much as a general lack of intelligence.
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Economics and ethics have little in common.
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The carefully fostered theory that schoolwork can be made easy and enjoyable breaks down as soon as anything, however trivial, has to be learned.
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