Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food, and few things in the world are more wearying than a sarcastic attitude towards life.
AGNES REPPLIERThe 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.
More Agnes Repplier Quotes
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Just as we are often moved to merriment for no other reason than that the occasion calls for seriousness, so we are correspondingly serious when invited too freely to be amused.
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It is in his pleasure that a man really lives.
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It is in his pleasure that a man really lives; it is from his leisure that he constructs the true fabric of self.
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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?
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It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.
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Too much rigidity on the part of teachers should be followed by a brisk spirit of insubordination on the part of the taught.
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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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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.
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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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To have given pleasure to one human being is a recollection that sweetens life.
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It takes time and trouble to persuade ourselves that the things we want to do are the things we ought to do.
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Philadelphians are every whit as mediocre as their neighbors, but they seldom encourage each other in mediocrity by giving it a more agreeable name.
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When the milk of human kindness turns sour, it is a singularly unpalatable draught.
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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.
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Discussion without asperity, sympathy with fusion, gayety unracked by too abundant jests, mental ease in approaching one another; these are the things which give a pleasant smoothness to the rough edge of life.
AGNES REPPLIER