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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

There is an optimism which nobly anticipates the eventual triumph of great moral laws, and there is an optimism which cheerfully tolerates unworthiness.
AGNES REPPLIER

Anticipate Eventual Great Law Moral Optimism Triumph
It was hard to speed the male child up the stony heights of erudition, but it was harder still to check the female child at the crucial point, and keep her tottering decorously behind her brother.
AGNES REPPLIER

Brother Check Children Education Erudition Female Speed Stony
No rural community, no suburban community, can ever possess the distinctive qualities that city dwellers have for centuries given to the world.
AGNES REPPLIER

Cities Community Distinctive Possess Quality
Art… does not take kindly to facts, is helpless to grapple with theories, and is killed outright by a sermon.
AGNES REPPLIER

Art Doe Fact Grapple Helpless Outright Sermon Theories
the labors of the true critic are more essential to the author, even, than to the reader.
AGNES REPPLIER

Critic Essential Generosity Labour Reader Woman
English civilization rests largely upon tea and cricket, with mighty spurts of enjoyment on Derby Day, and at Newmarket.
AGNES REPPLIER

Civilization Country Cricket Enjoyment Largely Rest Sport Tea
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.
AGNES REPPLIER

Actor Appeal Audience Controlling Factor Infallible Little Theater
the pleasure of possession, whether we possess trinkets, or offspring – or possibly books, or prints, or chessmen, or postage stamps – lies in showing these things to friends who are experiencing no immediate urge to look at them.
AGNES REPPLIER

Book Look Lying Offspring Possibly Print Trinket
to be civilized is to be incapable of giving unnecessary offense, it is to have some quality of consideration for all who cross our path.
AGNES REPPLIER

Civilized Consideration Giving Incapable Kindness Offence Quality Unnecessary
The impulse to travel is one of the hopeful symptoms of life.
AGNES REPPLIER

Funny Hopeful Inspirational System Travel
whereas the dog strives to lessen the distance between himself and man, seeks ever to be intelligent and intelligible, and translates into looks and actions the words he cannot speak, the cat dwells within the circle of her own secret thoughts.
AGNES REPPLIER

Cat Distance Dog Intelligent Seek Strive Thought Translate
Like simplicity and candor, and other much-commented qualities, enthusiasm is charming until we meet it face to face, and cannot escape from its charm.
AGNES REPPLIER

Charming Commented Enthusiasm Met Quality Simplicity Until
The great dividing line between books that are made to be read and books that are made to be bought is not the purely modern thing it seems. We can trace it, if we try, back to the first printing-presses.
AGNES REPPLIER

Book Dividing Geat Line Made Trying
The vanity of man revolts from the serene indifference of the cat.
AGNES REPPLIER

Cat Indifference Men Revolt Vanity
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
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.
AGNES REPPLIER

Attention Hardly Life Press Step Way
The human race may be divided into people who love cats and people who hate them; the neutrals being few in numbers, and, for intellectual and moral reasons, not worth considering.
AGNES REPPLIER

Cat Few Hate Neutral People Race
Wit is a thing capable of proof.
AGNES REPPLIER

Capable Proof Thing
Neatness of phrase is so closely akin to wit that it is often accepted as its substitute.
AGNES REPPLIER

Accepted Closely Often Phrases Speech Substitute
Traveling is, and has always been, more popular than the traveler.
AGNES REPPLIER

Always More Popular Travel Traveler
The universality of a custom is pledge of its worth.
AGNES REPPLIER

Custom Pledge Universality Worth
Books that children read but once are of scant service to them; those that have really helped to warm our imaginations and to train our faculties are the few old friends we know so well that they have become a portion of our thinking selves.
AGNES REPPLIER

Book Children Helped Imagination Portion Read Really Scant Service Thinking Warm
It is difficult to admonish Frenchmen. Their habit of mind is unfavorable to preachment.
AGNES REPPLIER

Difficult France Habit Mind Preachment Unfavurable
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
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

Absurdity Apprehension Elude Foundation Giving Largely Pleasure Reason
Edged tools are dangerous things to handle, and not infrequently do much hurt.
AGNES REPPLIER

Dangerous Edged Hurt Infrequently Risk Tool
People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization.
AGNES REPPLIER

Absurdity Civilization Palpable People Way

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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Popular Authors

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