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.
AGNES REPPLIERA man who listens because he has nothing to say can hardly be a source of inspiration. The only listening that counts is that of the talker who alternately absorbs and expresses ideas.
More Agnes Repplier Quotes
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The tourist may complain of other tourists, but he would be lost without them.
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The pessimist is seldom an agitating individual. His creed breeds indifference to others, and he does not trouble himself to thrust his views upon the unconvinced.
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Friendship takes time.
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It is impossible to withhold education from the receptive mind, as it is impossible to force it upon the unreasoning.
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Wit is a thing capable of proof.
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In those happy days when leisure was held to be no sin, men and women wrote journals whose copiousness both delights and dismays us.
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There was no escape from the letter-writer who, a hundred or a hundred and twenty-five years ago, captured a coveted correspondent. It would have been as easy to shake off an octopus or a boa-constrictor.
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There are many ways of asking a favor; but to assume that you are granting the favor that you ask shows spirit and invention.
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Cats, even when robust, have scant liking for the boisterous society of children, and are apt to exert their utmost ingenuity to escape it. Nor are they without adult sympathy in their prejudice.
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It is difficult to admonish Frenchmen. Their habit of mind is unfavorable to preachment.
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There is always a secret irritation about a laugh in which we cannot join
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But self-satisfaction, if as buoyant as gas, has an ugly trick of collapsing when full blown, and facts are stony things that refuse to melt away in the sunshine of a smile.
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Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their earthly pedestals.
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Our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage.
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Humor, in one form or another, is characteristic of every nation; and reflecting the salient points of social and national life, it illuminates those crowded corners which history leaves obscure.
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it is not every tourist who bubbles over with mirth, and that unquenchable spirit of humor which turns a trial into a blessing.
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Edged tools are dangerous things to handle, and not infrequently do much hurt.
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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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The thinkers of the world should by rights be guardians of the world’s mirth.
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Wit is as infinite as love, and a deal more lasting in its qualities.
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Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food, and few things in the world are more wearying than a sarcastic attitude towards life.
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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.
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The choice of a topic which will bear analysis and support enthusiasm, is essential to the enjoyment of conversation.
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People with theories of life are, perhaps, the most relentless of their kind, for no time or place is sacred from their devastating elucidations.
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We cannot hope to scale great moral heights by ignoring petty obligations.
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If history in the making be a fluid thing, it swiftly crystallizes.
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