Repplier Agnes Quotes & Sayings

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

For 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 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

The labors of the true critic are more essential to the author, even, than to the reader. — Agnes Repplier

There is nothing in the world so enjoyable as a thorough-going monomania ... — 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

There is a vast deal of make-believe in the carefully nurtured sentiment for country life, and the barefoot boy, and the mountain girl. — Agnes Repplier

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

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

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

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

Innovations to which we are not committed are illuminating things. — 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

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 not depravity that afflicts the human race so much as a general lack of intelligence. — 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

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

To have given pleasure to one human being is a recollection that sweetens life. — Agnes Repplier

A villain must be a thing of power, handled with delicacy and grace. He must be wicked enough to excite our aversion, strong enough to arouse our fear, human enough to awaken some transient gleam of sympathy. We must triumph in his downfall, yet not barbarously nor with contempt, and the close of his career must be in harmony with all its previous development. — Agnes Repplier

It is not every tourist who bubbles over with mirth, and that unquenchable spirit of humor which turns a trial into a blessing. — Agnes Repplier

[Mary Wortley Montagu] wrote more letters, with fewer punctuation marks, than any Englishwoman of her day; and her nephew, the fourth Baron Rokeby, nearly blinded himself in deciphering the two volumes of undated correspondence which were printed in 1810. Two more followed in 1813, after which the gallant Baron either died at his post or was smitten with despair; for sixty-eight cases of letters lay undisturbed ... 'Les morts n'écrivent point,' said Madame de Maintenon hopefully; but of what benefit is this inactivity, when we still continue to receive their letters? — Agnes Repplier

It is unwise to feel too much if we think too little. — Agnes Repplier

The impulse to travel is one of the hopeful symptoms of life. — Agnes Repplier

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

Bargaining is essential to the life of the world; but nobody has ever claimed that it is an ennobling process. — Agnes Repplier

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

The carefully fostered theory that schoolwork can be made easy and enjoyable breaks down as soon as anything, however trivial, has to be learned. — Agnes Repplier

A world of vested interests is not a world which welcomes the disruptive force of candor. — Agnes Repplier

History is not written in the interests of morality. — 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

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

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

We know when we have had enough of a friend, and we know when a friend has had enough of us. The first truth is no more palatable than the second. — 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

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. — 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

The man who never tells an unpalatable truth 'at the wrong time' (the right time has yet to be discovered) is the man whose success in life is fairly well assured. — 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

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

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

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

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

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. — Agnes Repplier

Wit is a thing capable of proof. — Agnes Repplier

Love is a malady, the common symptoms of which are the same in all patients ... — Agnes Repplier

We have but the memories of past good cheer, we have but the echoes of departed laughter. In vain we look and listen for the mirth that has died away. In vain we seek to question the gray ghosts of old-time revelers. — Agnes Repplier

We owe to one another all the wit and good humour we can command; and nothing so clears our mental vistas as sympathetic and intelligent conversation. — Agnes Repplier

There are few nudities so objectionable as the naked truth. — 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

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

Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their earthly pedestals. — Agnes Repplier

Traveling is, and has always been, more popular than the traveler. — 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

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

The 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 Repplier

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

The well-ordered mind knows the value, no less than the charm, of reticence. The fruit of the tree of knowledge ... falls ripe from its stem; but those who have eaten with sobriety find no need to discuss the processes of digestion. — Agnes Repplier

There is always a secret irritation about a laugh into which we cannot join. — 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

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

When the milk of human kindness turns sour, it is a singularly unpalatable draught. — 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

Letters form a by-path of literature, a charming, but occasional, retreat for people of cultivated leisure. — 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

Cats, even when robust, have scant liking for the boisterous society of children, and are apt to exert their utmost ingenuity to escape it. Nor are they without adult sympathy in their prejudice. — Agnes Repplier

Friendship takes time. — Agnes Repplier

The comfortable thing about the study of history is that it inclines us to think hopefully of our own times. — 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

It is as impossible to withhold education from the receptive mind, as it is impossible to force it upon the unreasoning. — Agnes Repplier

America has invested her religion as well as her morality in sound income-paying securities. She has adopted the unassailable position of a nation blessed because it deserves to be blessed; and her sons, whatever other theologies they may affect or disregard, subscribe unreservedly to this national creed. — 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

Philadelphians are every whit as mediocre as their neighbors, but they seldom encourage each other in mediocrity by giving it a more agreeable name. — Agnes Repplier

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

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. — 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

Discussion 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 Repplier

Whatever has "wit enough to keep it sweet" defies corruption and outlasts all time; but the wit must be of that outward and visible order which needs no introduction or demonstration at our hands. — Agnes Repplier

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

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

While art may instruct as well as please, it can nevertheless be true art without instructing, but not without pleasing. — Agnes Repplier

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

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

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

We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh. — Agnes Repplier

from the fine American essayist Agnes Repplier: "I used to think that ignorance of history meant only a lack of cultivation and a loss of pleasure. Now I am sure that such ignorance impairs our judgment by impairing our understanding, by depriving us of standards or the power of contrast, and the right to estimate." And, "We can know nothing of any nation unless we know its history. — John Lukacs

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