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 REPPLIERPersonally, I do not believe that it is the duty of any man or woman to write a novel. In nine cases out of ten, there would be greater merit in leaving it unwritten.
More Agnes Repplier Quotes
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We have but the memories of past good cheer, we have but the echoes of departed laughter. In vain we look and listen for the mirth that has died away. In vain we seek to question the gray ghosts of old-time revelers.
AGNES REPPLIER -
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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Edged tools are dangerous things to handle, and not infrequently do much hurt.
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A kitten is the most irresistible comedian in the world. Its wide-open eyes gleam with wonder and mirth. It darts madly at nothing at all, and then, as though suddenly checked in the pursuit, prances sideways on its hind legs with ridiculous agility and zeal.
AGNES REPPLIER -
the tea-hour is the hour of peace … strife is lost in the hissing of the kettle – a tranquilizing sound, second only to the purring of a cat.
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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.
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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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fair play is less characteristic of groups than of individuals.
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Innovations to which we are not committed are illuminating things.
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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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The earliest voice listened to by the nations in their infancy was the voice of the storyteller.
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The gayety of life, like the beauty and the moral worth of life, is a saving grace, which to ignore is folly, and to destroy is crime. There is no more than we need; there is barely enough to go round.
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Economics and ethics have little in common.
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The 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.
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It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.
AGNES REPPLIER






