Too much rigidity on the part of teachers should be followed by a brisk spirit of insubordination on the part of the taught.
AGNES REPPLIERToo much rigidity on the part of teachers should be followed by a brisk spirit of insubordination on the part of the taught.
AGNES REPPLIERThe necessity of knowing a little about a great many things is the most grievous burden of our day. It deprives us of leisure on the one hand, and of scholarship on the other.
AGNES REPPLIERif a man be discreet enough to take to hard drinking in his youth, before his general emptiness is ascertained, his friends invariably credit him with a host of shining qualities which, we are given to understand, lie balked and frustrated by his one unfortunate weakness.
AGNES REPPLIERWhen 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 REPPLIERThe perfectly natural thing to do with an unreadable book is to give it away; and the publication, for more than a quarter of a century, of volumes which fulfilled this one purpose and no other is a pleasant proof, if proof were needed, of the business principles which underlay the enlightened activity of publishers.
AGNES REPPLIERHistory is not written in the interests of morality.
AGNES REPPLIERFor indeed all that we think so new to-day has been acted over and over again, a shifting comedy, by the women of every century.
AGNES REPPLIERLaughter springs from the lawless part of our nature, and is purifying only in so far as there is a natural and unschooled goodness in the human heart.
AGNES REPPLIERI 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 REPPLIERHumor hardens the heart, at least to the point of sanity.
AGNES REPPLIERTo have given pleasure to one human being is a recollection that sweetens life.
AGNES REPPLIERLovers of the town have been content, for the most part, to say they loved it. They do not brag about its uplifting qualities. They have none of the infernal smugness which makes the lover of the country insupportable.
AGNES REPPLIERTraveling is, and has always been, more popular than the traveler.
AGNES REPPLIERThere are few things more wearisome in a fairly fatiguing life than the monotonous repetition of a phrase which catches and holds the public fancy by virtue of its total lack of significance.
AGNES REPPLIERMen who believe that, through some exceptional grace or good fortune, they have found God, feel little need of culture.
AGNES REPPLIERThe 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