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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.

Agnes Repplier

It is impossible to withhold education from the receptive mind, as it is impossible to force it upon the unreasoning.
AGNES REPPLIER

Education Force Impossible Inspirational Inspiring Mind Unreasoning Upon
It takes time and trouble to persuade ourselves that the things we want to do are the things we ought to do.
AGNES REPPLIER

Choices Want Ought Ourselves Persuade Thing Trouble Wanted
Sleep sweetly in the fields of asphodel, and waken, as of old, to stretch thy languid length, and purr thy soft contentment to the skies.
AGNES REPPLIER

Cat Languid Length Sky Sleep Stretch Sweetly
People with theories of life are, perhaps, the most relentless of their kind, for no time or place is sacred from their devastating elucidations.
AGNES REPPLIER

Kind People Place Relentless Sacred Scared Talking Theories
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 REPPLIER

Book Giving More Natural Principle Publication Unreadable
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.
AGNES REPPLIER

Brag Cities Content Country Lover Most Part Uplifting
There is nothing in the world so enjoyable as a thorough-going monomania.
AGNES REPPLIER

Enjoyable Induce Music People Thorough Truthful World
Every misused word revenges itself forever upon a writer’s reputation.
AGNES REPPLIER

Forever Misused Reputation Revenge Writer
I am seventy years old, a gray age weighted with uncompromising biblical allusions. It ought to have a gray outlook, but it hasn’t, because a glint of dazzling sunshine is dancing merrily ahead of me.
AGNES REPPLIER

Biblical Gray Old Ought Outlook Seventy Sunshine Uncompromising Weighted Year
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 REPPLIER

Backward Complacency Illusion Look Process Reality Relatives
Where there is no temptation, there is no virtue.
AGNES REPPLIER

No Temptation Virtue
The choice of a topic which will bear analysis and support enthusiasm, is essential to the enjoyment of conversation.
AGNES REPPLIER

Analysis Choice Enjoyed Enthusiasm Essential Support Topic
The clear-sighted do not rule the world, but they sustain and console it.
AGNES REPPLIER

Clear Console Perception Sighted Sustain World
What strange impulse is it which induces otherwise truthful people to say they like music when they do not, and thus expose themselves to hours of boredom?
AGNES REPPLIER

Boredom Impulse Music Otherwise People Stange
The necessity of knowing a little about a great many things is the most grievous burden of our day. It deprives us of leisure on the one hand, and of scholarship on the other.
AGNES REPPLIER

Burden Grievous Hand Knowing Knowledge Little
In those happy days when leisure was held to be no sin, men and women wrote journals whose copiousness both delights and dismays us.
AGNES REPPLIER

Day Delight Diaries Happy Journal Men Wrote

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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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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