Agnes Repplier Quotes & Sayings

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

The tourist may complain of other tourists, but he would be lost without them. — Agnes Repplier

It has been wisely said that we cannot really love anybody at whom we never laugh. — Agnes Repplier

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

The universality of a custom is pledge of its worth. — Agnes Repplier

If we could make up our minds to spare our friends all details of ill health, of money losses, of domestic annoyances, of altercations, of committee work, of grievances, provocations, and anxieties, we should sin less against the world's good-humor. It may not be given us to add to the treasury of mirth; but there is considerable merit in not robbing it. — Agnes Repplier

A kitten is the most irresistible comedian in the world. Its wide-open eyes gleam with wonder and mirth. It darts madly at nothing at all, and then, as though suddenly checked in the pursuit, prances sideways on its hind legs with ridiculous agility and zeal. — Agnes Repplier

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

History is, and has always been trameled by facts. It may ignore some and deny others; but it cannot accommodate itself unreservedly to theories; it cannot be stripped of things evidenced in favor of things surmised. — Agnes Repplier

If history in the making be a fluid thing, it swiftly crystallizes. — Agnes Repplier

There is nothing in the world so incomprehensible as the joke we do not see. — Agnes Repplier

If we go to church we are confronted with a system of begging so complicated and so resolute that all other demands sink into insignificance by its side. — Agnes Repplier

Who 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 Repplier

I wonder what especial sanctity attaches itself to fifteen minutes. It is always the maximum and the minimum of time which will enable us to acquire languages, etiquette, personality, oratory ... One gathers that twelve minutes a day would be hopelessly inadequate, and twenty minutes a wasteful and ridiculous excess. — Agnes Repplier

Humor, in one form or another, is characteristic of every nation; and reflecting the salient points of social and national life, it illuminates those crowded corners which history leaves obscure. — Agnes Repplier

We cannot hope to scale great moral heights by ignoring petty obligations. — Agnes Repplier

Men who believe that, through some exceptional grace or good fortune, they have found God, feel little need of culture. — Agnes Repplier

We 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 Repplier

Why do so many ingenious theorists give fresh reasons every year for the decline of letter writing, and why do they assume, in derision of suffering humanity, that it has declined? They lament the lack of leisure, the lack of sentiment ... They talk of telegrams, and telephones, and postal cards, as if any discovery of science, any device of civilization, could eradicate from the human heart that passion for self-expression which is the impelling force of letters. — Agnes Repplier

A vast deal of ingenuity is wasted every year in evoking the undesirable, in the careful construction of objects which burden life. Frankenstein was a large rather than an isolated example. — Agnes Repplier

This is the sphinx of the hearthstone, the little god of domesticity, whose presence turns a house into a home. — Agnes Repplier

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

Everybody is now so busy teaching that nobody has any time to learn. — Agnes Repplier

It's not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it's not possible to find it elsewhere. — Agnes Repplier

It takes time and trouble to persuade ourselves that the things we want to do are the things we ought to do. — Agnes Repplier

The audience is the controlling factor in the actor's life. It is practically infallible, since there is no appeal from its verdict. It is a little like a supreme court composed of irresponsible minors. — Agnes Repplier

It has been well said that tea is suggestive of a thousand wants, from which spring the decencies and luxuries of civilization. — Agnes Repplier

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

The party which is out sees nothing but graft and incapacity in the party which is in; and the party which is in sees nothing but greed and animosity in the party which is out. — Agnes Repplier

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and impossible to find it elsewhere. — Agnes Repplier

Whereas the dog strives to lessen the distance between himself and man, seeks ever to be intelligent and intelligible, and translates into looks and actions the words he cannot speak, the cat dwells within the circle of her own secret thoughts. — Agnes Repplier

The earliest voice listened to by the nations in their infancy was the voice of the storyteller. — Agnes Repplier

Letter-writing on the part of a busy man or woman is the quintessence of generosity. — Agnes Repplier

Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements. — Agnes Repplier

Economics and ethics have little in common. — Agnes Repplier

Wit is artificial; humor is natural. Wit is accidental; humor is inevitable. Wit is born of conscious effort; humor, of the allotted ironies of fate. Wit can be expressed only in language; humor can be developed sufficiently in situation. — Agnes Repplier

It is not the office of a novelist to show us how to behave ourselves; it is not the business of fiction to teach us anything. — Agnes Repplier

It is the steady and merciless increase of occupations, the augmented speed at which we are always trying to live, the crowding of each day with more work than it can profitably hold, which has cost us, among other things, the undisturbed enjoyment of friends. Friendship takes time, and we have no time to give it. — Agnes Repplier

Books that children read but once are of scant service to them; those that have really helped to warm our imaginations and to train our faculties are the few old friends we know so well that they have become a portion of our thinking selves. — Agnes Repplier

The great dividing line between books that are made to be read and books that are made to be bought is not the purely modern thing it seems. We can trace it, if we try, back to the first printing-presses ... — Agnes Repplier

Next to the joy of the egotist is the joy of the detractor. — Agnes Repplier

Conversation in its happiest development is a link, equally exquisite and adequate, between mind and mind, a system by which men approach one another with sympathy and enjoyment, a field for the finest amenities of civilization, for the keenest and most intelligent display of social activity. It is also our solace, our inspiration, and our most rational pleasure. It is a duty we owe to one another; it is our common debt to humanity. — Agnes Repplier

Resistance, which is the function of conservatism, is essential to orderly advance. — Agnes Repplier

Abroad it is our habit to regard all other travelers in the light of personal and unpardonable grievances. They are intruders into our chosen realms of pleasure, they jar upon our sensibilities, they lessen our meager share of comforts, they are everywhere in our way, they are always an unnecessary feature in the landscape. — Agnes Repplier

The soul begins to travel when the child begins to think. — Agnes Repplier

Wit is as infinite as love, and a deal more lasting in its qualities. — Agnes Repplier

The vanity of man revolts from the serene indifference of the cat. — Agnes Repplier

The pessimist is seldom an agitating individual. His creed breeds indifference to others, and he does not trouble himself to thrust his views upon the unconvinced. — Agnes Repplier

Just as we are often moved to merriment for no other reason than that the occasion calls for seriousness, so we are correspondingly serious when invited too freely to be amused. — Agnes Repplier

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

The human race may be divided into people who love cats and people who hate them; the neutrals being few in numbers, and, for intellectual and moral reasons, not worth considering. — Agnes Repplier

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

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. — Agnes Repplier

The diseases of the present have little in common with the diseases of the past save that we die of them. — Agnes Repplier

No rural community, no suburban community, can ever possess the distinctive qualities that city dwellers have for centuries given to the world. — Agnes Repplier

The dog is guided by kindly instinct to the man or woman whose heart is open to his advances. The cat often leaves the friend who courts her, to honor, or to harass, the unfortunate mortal who shudders at her unwelcome caresses. — Agnes Repplier

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. — Agnes Repplier

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

The English possess too many agreeable traits to permit them to be as much disliked as they think and hope they are. — Agnes Repplier

Believers in political faith-healing enjoy a supreme immunity from doubt. — Agnes Repplier

Fair play is less characteristic of groups than of individuals. — Agnes Repplier

Miserliness is the one vice that grows stronger with increasing years. It yields its sordid pleasures to the end. — Agnes Repplier

Where there is no temptation, there is no virtue. — Agnes Repplier

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

Neatness of phrase is so closely akin to wit that it is often accepted as its substitute. — Agnes Repplier

It is claimed that the United States gets the cleanest and purest tea in the market, and certainly it is too good to warrant the nervous apprehension which strains and dilutes it into nothingness. The English do not strain their tea in the fervid fashion we do. They like to see a few leaves dawdling about the cup. They like to know what they are drinking. — Agnes Repplier

If 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 Repplier

There is no liberal education for the under-languaged. — Agnes Repplier

The gayety of life, like the beauty and the moral worth of life, is a saving grace, which to ignore is folly, and to destroy is crime. There is no more than we need; there is barely enough to go round. — Agnes Repplier

Every misused word revenges itself forever upon a writer's reputation. — Agnes Repplier

Science may carry us to Mars, but it will leave the earth peopled as ever by the inept. — Agnes Repplier

Sensuality, too, which used to show itself course, smiling, unmasked, and unmistakable, is now serious, analytic, and so burdened with a sense of its responsibilities that it passes muster half the time as a new type of asceticism. — Agnes Repplier

People who pin their faith to a catchword never feel the necessity of understanding anything. — Agnes Repplier

The most charming thing about youth is the tenacity of its impressions. — Agnes Repplier

It was hard to speed the male child up the stony heights of erudition, but it was harder still to check the female child at the crucial point, and keep her tottering decorously behind her brother. — Agnes Repplier

The cure-alls of the present day are infinitely various and infinitely obliging. Applied psychology, autosuggestion, and royal roads to learning or to wealth are urged upon us by kindly, if not altogether disinterested, reformers. Simple and easy systems for the dissolution of discord and strife; simple and easy systems for the development of personality and power. Booklets of counsel on 'How to Get What We Want,' which is impossible; booklets on 'Visualization,' warranted to make us want what we get, which is ignoble. — Agnes Repplier

History is not written in the interests of morality. — Agnes Repplier

It is bad enough to be bad, but to be bad in bad taste is unpardonable. — Agnes Repplier

We are tethered to our kind, and may as well join hands in the struggle. — Agnes Repplier

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

A kitten is chiefly remarkable for rushing about like mad at nothing whatever, and generally stopping before it gets there. — Agnes Repplier

The tea-hour is the hour of peace ... strife is lost in the hissing of the kettle - a tranquilizing sound, second only to the purring of a cat. — Agnes Repplier

In those happy days when leisure was held to be no sin, men and women wrote journals whose copiousness both delights and dismays us. — Agnes Repplier

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

Guests are the delight of leisure, and the solace of ennui. — Agnes Repplier

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. — Agnes Repplier

The worst in life, we are told, is compatible with the best in art. So too the worst in life is compatible with the best in humour. — Agnes Repplier

Sleep sweetly in the fields of asphodel, and waken, as of old, to stretch thy languid length, and purr thy soft contentment to the skies. — Agnes Repplier

To be brave in misfortune is to be worthy of manhood; to be wise in misfortune is to conquer fate. — Agnes Repplier

The thinkers of the world should by rights be guardians of the world's mirth. — Agnes Repplier

In the stress of modern life, how little room is left for that most comfortable vanity that whispers in our ears that failures are not faults! Now we are taught from infancy that we must rise or fall upon our own merits; that vigilance wins success, and incapacity means ruin — Agnes Repplier

The pleasure of possession, whether we possess trinkets, or offspring - or possibly books, or prints, or chessmen, or postage stamps - lies in showing these things to friends who are experiencing no immediate urge to look at them. — Agnes Repplier

It is not begging but the beggar, who has forfeited favor with the elect. — Agnes Repplier

Art ... does not take kindly to facts, is helpless to grapple with theories, and is killed outright by a sermon. — Agnes Repplier

Anyone, however, who has had dealings with dates knows that they are worse than elusive, they are perverse. Events do not happen at the right time, nor in their proper sequence. That sense of harmony with place and season which is so strong in the historian
if he be a readable historian
is lamentably lacking in history, which takes no pains to verify his most convincing statements. — Agnes Repplier

There is something frightful in being required to enjoy and appreciate all masterpieces; to read with equal relish Milton, and Dante, and Calderon, and Goethe, and Homer, and Scott, and Voltaire, and Wordsworth, and Cervantes, and Molière, and Swift. — Agnes Repplier

There is a natural limit to the success we wish our friends, even when we have spurred them on their way. — 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

English civilization rests largely upon tea and cricket, with mighty spurts of enjoyment on Derby Day, and at Newmarket. — Agnes Repplier

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 Repplier