Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements.
AGNES REPPLIERWhen the contemplative mind is a French mind, it is content, for the most part, to contemplate France. When the contemplative mind is an English mind, it is liable to be seized at any moment by an importunate desire to contemplate Morocco or Labrador.
More Agnes Repplier Quotes
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Letter-writing on the part of a busy man or woman is the quintessence of generosity.
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The party which is out sees nothing but graft and incapacity in the party which is in; and the party which is in sees nothing but greed and animosity in the party which is out.
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The pitfall of the feminist is the belief that the interests of men and women can ever be severed; that what brings sufferings to the one can leave the other unscathed.
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There is a secret and wholesome conviction in the heart of every man or woman who has written a book that it should be no easy matter for an intelligent reader to lay down that book unfinished. There is a pardonable impression among reviewers that half an hour in its company is sufficient.
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The English possess too many agreeable traits to permit them to be as much disliked as they think and hope they are.
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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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Edged tools are dangerous things to handle, and not infrequently do much hurt.
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The necessity of knowing a little about a great many things is the most grievous burden of our day. It deprives us of leisure on the one hand, and of scholarship on the other.
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Letters form a by-path of literature, a charming, but occasional, retreat for people of cultivated leisure.
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I do strive to think well of my fellow man, but no amount of striving can give me confidence in the wisdom of a congressional vote.
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We know when we have had enough of a friend, and we know when a friend has had enough of us. The first truth is no more palatable than the second.
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The carefully fostered theory that schoolwork can be made easy and enjoyable breaks down as soon as anything, however trivial, has to be learned.
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Every misused word revenges itself forever upon a writer’s reputation.
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The delusions of the past seem fond and foolish. The delusions of the present seem subtle and sane.
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What monstrous absurdities and paradoxes have resisted whole batteries of serious arguments, and then crumbled swiftly into dust before the ringing death-knell of a laugh!
AGNES REPPLIER