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 REPPLIERThere are many ways of asking a favor; but to assume that you are granting the favor that you ask shows spirit and invention.
AGNES REPPLIERTo have given pleasure to one human being is a recollection that sweetens life.
AGNES REPPLIERA world of vested interests is not a world which welcomes the disruptive force of candor.
AGNES REPPLIERPersonally, 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 REPPLIERWe are tethered to our kind, and may as well join hands in the struggle.
AGNES REPPLIERWe may fail of our happiness, strive we ever so bravely; but we are less likely to fail if we measure with judgement our chances and our capabilities.
AGNES REPPLIERWho that has plodded on to middle age would take back upon his shoulders ten of the vanished years, with their mingled pleasures and pains? Who would return to the youth he is forever pretending to regret?
AGNES REPPLIERThe clear-sighted do not rule the world, but they sustain and console it.
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.
AGNES REPPLIERDiscussion 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 REPPLIERthe 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.
AGNES REPPLIERWit 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 REPPLIERI 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 REPPLIEREconomics and ethics have little in common.
AGNES REPPLIERThere is no liberal education for the under-languaged.
AGNES REPPLIERIt 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