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What monstrous absurdities and paradoxes have resisted whole batteries of serious arguments, and then crumbled swiftly into dust before the ringing death-knell of a laugh!

Agnes Repplier

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Agnes Repplier
Age: 92 †
Born: 1858
Born: April 1
Died: 1950
Died: December 15
Biographer
Essayist
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Whole
Paradox
Absurdities
Dust
Ringing
Laughter
Resisted
Argument
Swiftly
Laugh
Batteries
Laughing
Monstrous
Knell
Serious
Absurdity
Crumbled
Death
Arguments
Paradoxes

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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.
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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.
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A puppy is but a dog, plus high spirits, and minus common sense.
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Humor hardens the heart, at least to the point of sanity.
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No rural community, no suburban community, can ever possess the distinctive qualities that city dwellers have for centuries given to the world.
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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.
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The essence of humor is that it should be unexpected, that it should embody an element of surprise, that it should startle us out of that reasonable gravity which, after all, must be our habitual frame of mind.
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Guests are the delight of leisure, and the solace of ennui.
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Every misused word revenges itself forever upon a writer's reputation.
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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.
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Next to the joy of the egotist is the joy of the detractor.
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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.
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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.
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There are few nudities so objectionable as the naked truth.
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Conversation between Adam and Eve must have been difficult at times, because they had nobody to talk about.
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The delusions of the past seem fond and foolish. The delusions of the present seem subtle and sane.
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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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Everybody is now so busy teaching that nobody has any time to learn.
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If history in the making be a fluid thing, it swiftly crystallizes.
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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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