Discussion without asperity, sympathy with fusion, gayety unracked by too abundant jests, mental ease in approaching one another; these are the things which give a pleasant smoothness to the rough edge of life.
AGNES REPPLIERI 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.
More Agnes Repplier Quotes
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The well-ordered mind knows the value, no less than the charm, of reticence. The fruit of the tree of knowledge … falls ripe from its stem; but those who have eaten with sobriety find no need to discuss the processes of digestion.
AGNES REPPLIER -
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.
AGNES REPPLIER -
It is unwise to feel too much if we think too little.
AGNES REPPLIER -
It is bad enough to be bad, but to be bad in bad taste is unpardonable.
AGNES REPPLIER -
I am seventy years old, a gray age weighted with uncompromising biblical allusions. It ought to have a gray outlook, but it hasn’t, because a glint of dazzling sunshine is dancing merrily ahead of me.
AGNES REPPLIER -
it is not every tourist who bubbles over with mirth, and that unquenchable spirit of humor which turns a trial into a blessing.
AGNES REPPLIER -
A 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.
AGNES REPPLIER -
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.
AGNES REPPLIER -
Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.
AGNES REPPLIER -
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.
AGNES REPPLIER -
Whatever has “wit enough to keep it sweet” defies corruption and outlasts all time; but the wit must be of that outward and visible order which needs no introduction or demonstration at our hands.
AGNES REPPLIER -
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 -
No man pursues what he has at hand. No man recognizes the need of pursuit until that which he desires has escaped him.
AGNES REPPLIER -
whereas the dog strives to lessen the distance between himself and man, seeks ever to be intelligent and intelligible, and translates into looks and actions the words he cannot speak, the cat dwells within the circle of her own secret thoughts.
AGNES REPPLIER -
The least practical of us have some petty thrift dear to our hearts, some one direction in which we love to scrimp.
AGNES REPPLIER -
To be brave in misfortune is to be worthy of manhood; to be wise in misfortune is to conquer fate.
AGNES REPPLIER -
There is no illusion so permanent as that which enables us to look backward with complacency; there is no mental process so deceptive as the comparing of recollections with realities.
AGNES REPPLIER -
Resistance, which is the function of conservatism, is essential to orderly advance.
AGNES REPPLIER -
Science may carry us to Mars, but it will leave the earth peopled as ever by the inept.
AGNES REPPLIER -
We owe to one another all the wit and good humour we can command; and nothing so clears our mental vistas as sympathetic and intelligent conversation.
AGNES REPPLIER -
Edged tools are dangerous things to handle, and not infrequently do much hurt.
AGNES REPPLIER -
Those persons are happiest in this restless and mutable world who are in love with change, who delight in what is new simply because it differs from what is old; who rejoice in every innovation, and find a strange alert pleasure in all that is, and that has never been before.
AGNES REPPLIER -
While art may instruct as well as please, it can nevertheless be true art without instructing, but not without pleasing.
AGNES REPPLIER -
The delusions of the past seem fond and foolish. The delusions of the present seem subtle and sane.
AGNES REPPLIER -
Letter-writing on the part of a busy man or woman is the quintessence of generosity.
AGNES REPPLIER -
It is not what we learn in conversation that enriches us. It is the elation that comes of swift contact with tingling currents of thought.
AGNES REPPLIER