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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

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

Buoyant Collapsing Satisfaction Self Sunshine Trick Ugly
The vanity of man revolts from the serene indifference of the cat.
AGNES REPPLIER

Cat Indifference Men Revolt Vanity
The 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.
AGNES REPPLIER

Frightful Goodness Law Masterpiece Men Pressure REquired Strong
What puzzles most of us are the things which have been left in the movies rather than the things which have been taken out.
AGNES REPPLIER

Cinema Movie Puzzle Rather Taken Thing
Letters form a by-path of literature, a charming, but occasional, retreat for people of cultivated leisure.
AGNES REPPLIER

Charming Cultivated Leisure Letter Literature People Retreat
Wit is a pleasure-giving thing, largely because it eludes reason; but in the apprehension of an absurdity through the working of the comic spirit there is a foundation of reason, and an impetus to human companionship.
AGNES REPPLIER

Absurdity Apprehension Elude Foundation Giving Largely Pleasure Reason
The age of credulity is every age the world has ever known. Men have always turned from the ascertained, which is limited and discouraging, to the dubious, which is unlimited and full of hope for everybody.
AGNES REPPLIER

Age Always Ascertained Every Men Thinking
It takes time and trouble to persuade ourselves that the things we want to do are the things we ought to do.
AGNES REPPLIER

Choices Want Ought Ourselves Persuade Thing Trouble Wanted
It is because of our unassailable enthusiasm, our profound reverence for education, that we habitually demand of it the impossible. The teacher is expected to perform a choice and varied series of miracles.
AGNES REPPLIER

Choices Demand Education Enthusiasm Habitually Profound Reverence Teacher Unassailable
Humor hardens the heart, at least to the point of sanity.
AGNES REPPLIER

Harden Heart Humor Sanity
Our belief in education is unbounded, our reverence for it is unfaltering, our loyalty to it is unshaken by reverses. Our passionate desire, not so much to acquire it as to bestow it, is the most animated of American traits.
AGNES REPPLIER

Belief Loyalty Passionate Desire Reverse Unbounded Unshaken
Too much rigidity on the part of teachers should be followed by a brisk spirit of insubordination on the part of the taught.
AGNES REPPLIER

Followed Insubordination Rigidly Taught Teacher Too Much
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

Hardly Idea Inspiration Inspirational Listening Men Source
Every misused word revenges itself forever upon a writer’s reputation.
AGNES REPPLIER

Forever Misused Reputation Revenge Writer
An appreciation of words is so rare that everybody naturally thinks he possesses it, and this universal sentiment results in the misuse of a material whose beauty enriches the loving student beyond the dreams of avarice.
AGNES REPPLIER

Appreciation Dream Everybody Naturally Sentimental Thinking Universal Word
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.
AGNES REPPLIER

Confidence Fellow Giving Men Striving Thinking Wisdom
Bargaining is essential to the life of the world; but nobody has ever claimed that it is an ennobling process.
AGNES REPPLIER

Bargaining Ennobling Essential Process Shopping World
It is not depravity that afflicts the human race so much as a general lack of intelligence.
AGNES REPPLIER

Affect Depravity General Human Intelligence Lack Race
Diaries tell their little tales with a directness, a candor, conscious or unconscious, a closeness of outlook, which gratifies our sense of security. Reading them is like gazing through a small clear pane of glass. We may not see far and wide, but we see very distinctly that which comes within our field of vision.
AGNES REPPLIER

Candor Conscious Glasses Outlook Reading Tale Unconscious Vision
There is an optimism which nobly anticipates the eventual triumph of great moral laws, and there is an optimism which cheerfully tolerates unworthiness.
AGNES REPPLIER

Anticipate Eventual Great Law Moral Optimism Triumph
When 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.
AGNES REPPLIER

Contemplate Contemplative Country Desire English French Important Mind Movement Travel
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

Apart Ask Asking Favor Granting Invention Many Way
There is nothing in the world so enjoyable as a thorough-going monomania.
AGNES REPPLIER

Enjoyable Induce Music People Thorough Truthful World
There is always a secret irritation about a laugh in which we cannot join
AGNES REPPLIER

Irritation Join Laugh Laughing Secret
Every true American likes to think in terms of thousands and millions. The word ‘million’ is probably the most pleasure-giving vocable in the language.
AGNES REPPLIER

Country Giving Language Like Million Probably Term Thinking Thousand Vocable
While art may instruct as well as please, it can nevertheless be true art without instructing, but not without pleasing.
AGNES REPPLIER

Art Democracy Instructing May Nonetheless Please Pleasure Tease
We cannot learn to love other tourists,-the laws of nature forbid it,-but, meditating soberly on the impossibility of their loving us, we may reach some common platform of tolerance, some common exchange of recognition and amenity.
AGNES REPPLIER

Forbid Impossibility Law Meditating Nature Soberly Tolerance Travel

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.

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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.

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