For my part, the good novel of character is the novel I can always pick up; but the good novel of incident is the novel I can never lay down.
AGNES REPPLIERIf 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.
More Agnes Repplier Quotes
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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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There is an optimism which nobly anticipates the eventual triumph of great moral laws, and there is an optimism which cheerfully tolerates unworthiness.
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Letter-writing on the part of a busy man or woman is the quintessence of generosity.
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A man who owns a dog is, in every sense of the words, its master; the term expresses accurately their mutual relations. But it is ridiculous when applied to the limited possession of a cat.
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He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion. Our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage.
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Science may carry us to Mars, but it will leave the earth peopled as ever by the inept.
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It is difficult to admonish Frenchmen. Their habit of mind is unfavorable to preachment.
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the 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.
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This is the sphinx of the hearthstone, the little god of domesticity, whose presence turns a house into a home.
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Guests are the delight of leisure, and the solace of ennui.
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What strange impulse is it which induces otherwise truthful people to say they like music when they do not, and thus expose themselves to hours of boredom?
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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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Too much rigidity on the part of teachers should be followed by a brisk spirit of insubordination on the part of the taught.
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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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Next to the joy of the egotist is the joy of the detractor.
AGNES REPPLIER