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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.

Agnes Repplier

Sensuality, too, which used to show itself course, smiling, unmasked, and unmistakable, is now serious, analytic, and so burdened with a sense of its responsibilities that it passes muster half the time as a new type of asceticism.
AGNES REPPLIER

Course Half Itself Responsibility Smiling Unmistakable Vice
It is not begging but the beggar, who has forfeited favor with the elect.
AGNES REPPLIER

Beggar Begging Charity Elect Favor Forfeited
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.
AGNES REPPLIER

Advance Cat Dog Guided Heart Instinct Man Woman
The diseases of the present have little in common with the diseases of the past save that we die of them.
AGNES REPPLIER

Common Die Disease Little Past Post Save
Letter-writing on the part of a busy man or woman is the quintessence of generosity.
AGNES REPPLIER

Generosity Man Quintessence Woman Writing
It takes time and trouble to persuade ourselves that the things we want to do are the things we ought to do.
AGNES REPPLIER

Choices Want Ought Ourselves Persuade Thing Trouble Wanted
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
People fed on sugared praises cannot be expected to feel an appetite for the black broth of honest criticism.
AGNES REPPLIER

Appetite Black Criticism Expected Fed People Sugared
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

Behave Fiction Novelist Office Ourselves Teach
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.
AGNES REPPLIER

Laughter Merriment Moved Occasion Other Reason Serious Seriousness
Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their earthly pedestals.
AGNES REPPLIER

Distort Earthly Funny Humor Pedestal Women
if a man be discreet enough to take to hard drinking in his youth, before his general emptiness is ascertained, his friends invariably credit him with a host of shining qualities which, we are given to understand, lie balked and frustrated by his one unfortunate weakness.
AGNES REPPLIER

Ascertained Discreet Drinking Emptiness General Hard Lying Men
Men who believe that, through some exceptional grace or good fortune, they have found God, feel little need of culture.
AGNES REPPLIER

Believe Feel FGod Good Grace Little Men Need Time
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.
AGNES REPPLIER

Brag Cities Content Country Lover Most Part Uplifting
real letter-writing … is founded on a need as old and as young as humanity itself, the need that one human being has of another.
AGNES REPPLIER

Founded Humanity Letter Old Real Writing
For my part, the good novel of character is the novel I can always pick up; but the good novel of incident is the novel I can never lay down.
AGNES REPPLIER

Character Good Incident Novel Part Reading

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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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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