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 REPPLIERWhile art may instruct as well as please, it can nevertheless be true art without instructing, but not without pleasing.
More Agnes Repplier Quotes
-
-
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 -
There are many ways of asking a favor; but to assume that you are granting the favor that you ask shows spirit and invention.
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 -
Personally, I do not believe that it is the duty of any man or woman to write a novel. In nine cases out of ten, there would be greater merit in leaving it unwritten.
AGNES REPPLIER -
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.
AGNES REPPLIER -
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 REPPLIER -
It has been well said that tea is suggestive of a thousand wants, from which spring the decencies and luxuries of civilization.
AGNES REPPLIER -
If history in the making be a fluid thing, it swiftly crystallizes.
AGNES REPPLIER -
Letter-writing on the part of a busy man or woman is the quintessence of generosity.
AGNES REPPLIER -
Books that children read but once are of scant service to them; those that have really helped to warm our imaginations and to train our faculties are the few old friends we know so well that they have become a portion of our thinking selves.
AGNES REPPLIER -
To have given pleasure to one human being is a recollection that sweetens life.
AGNES REPPLIER -
This is the sphinx of the hearthstone, the little god of domesticity, whose presence turns a house into a home.
AGNES REPPLIER -
To be brave in misfortune is to be worthy of manhood; to be wise in misfortune is to conquer fate.
AGNES REPPLIER -
We cannot hope to scale great moral heights by ignoring petty obligations.
AGNES REPPLIER -
Economics and ethics have little in common.
AGNES REPPLIER -
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.
AGNES REPPLIER -
The choice of a topic which will bear analysis and support enthusiasm, is essential to the enjoyment of conversation.
AGNES REPPLIER -
Next to the joy of the egotist is the joy of the detractor.
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 -
The comfortable thing about the study of history is that it inclines us to think hopefully of our own times.
AGNES REPPLIER -
Wit is a thing capable of proof.
AGNES REPPLIER -
The gayety of life, like the beauty and the moral worth of life, is a saving grace, which to ignore is folly, and to destroy is crime. There is no more than we need; there is barely enough to go round.
AGNES REPPLIER -
It is impossible for a lover of cats to banish these alert, gentle, and discriminating friends, who give us just enough of their regard and complaisance to make us hunger for more.
AGNES REPPLIER -
There is always a secret irritation about a laugh in which we cannot join
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 vanity of man revolts from the serene indifference of the cat.
AGNES REPPLIER