I am eighty years old. There seems to be nothing to add to this statement. I have reached the age of undecorated facts – facts that refuse to be softened by sentiment, or confused by nobility of phrase.
AGNES REPPLIERThe sanguine assurance that men and nations can be legislated into goodness, that pressure from without is equivalent to a moral change within, needs a strong backing of inexperience.
More Agnes Repplier Quotes
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to be civilized is to be incapable of giving unnecessary offense, it is to have some quality of consideration for all who cross our path.
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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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Economics and ethics have little in common.
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There is no liberal education for the under-languaged.
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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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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.
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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.
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Innovations to which we are not committed are illuminating things.
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The earliest voice listened to by the nations in their infancy was the voice of the storyteller.
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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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History is not written in the interests of morality.
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Erudition, like a bloodhound, is a charming thing when held firmly in leash, but it is not so attractive when turned loose upon a defenseless and unerudite public.
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If everybody floated with the tide of talk, placidity would soon end in stagnation. It is the strong backward stroke which stirs the ripples, and gives animation and variety.
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It is bad enough to be bad, but to be bad in bad taste is unpardonable.
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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