Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food, and few things in the world are more wearying than a sarcastic attitude towards life.
AGNES REPPLIERthe most comfortable characteristic of the period [1775-1825], and the one which incites our deepest envy, is the universal willingness to accept a good purpose as a substitute for good work.
More Agnes Repplier Quotes
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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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Letters form a by-path of literature, a charming, but occasional, retreat for people of cultivated leisure.
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There is always a secret irritation about a laugh in which we cannot join
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Where there is no temptation, there is no virtue.
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English civilization rests largely upon tea and cricket, with mighty spurts of enjoyment on Derby Day, and at Newmarket.
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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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While art may instruct as well as please, it can nevertheless be true art without instructing, but not without pleasing.
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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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Need drives men to envy as fullness drives them to selfishness.
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Friendship takes time.
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Wit is artificial; humor is natural. Wit is accidental; humor is inevitable. Wit is born of conscious effort; humor, of the allotted ironies of fate. Wit can be expressed only in language; humor can be developed sufficiently in situation.
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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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For indeed all that we think so new to-day has been acted over and over again, a shifting comedy, by the women of every century.
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Art… does not take kindly to facts, is helpless to grapple with theories, and is killed outright by a sermon.
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There is a vast deal of make-believe in the carefully nurtured sentiment for country life, and the barefoot boy, and the mountain girl.
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