There is a natural limit to the success we wish our friends, even when we have spurred them on their way.
AGNES REPPLIERthe 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.
More Agnes Repplier Quotes
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Erudition, like a bloodhound, is a charming thing when held firmly in leash, but it is not so attractive when turned loose upon a defenseless and unerudite public.
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Now the pessimist proper is the most modest of men. … under no circumstances does he presume to imagine that he, a mere unit of pain, can in any degree change or soften the remorseless words of fate.
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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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It is bad enough to be bad, but to be bad in bad taste is unpardonable.
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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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People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization.
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Bargaining is essential to the life of the world; but nobody has ever claimed that it is an ennobling process.
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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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Humor brings insight and tolerance.
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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 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 difficult to admonish Frenchmen. Their habit of mind is unfavorable to preachment.
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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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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.
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