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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

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Agnes Repplier
Age: 92 †
Born: 1858
Born: April 1
Died: 1950
Died: December 15
Biographer
Essayist
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Less
Measure
May
Likely
Ever
Strive
Fail
Bravely
Failure
Capabilities
Failing
Capability
Chance
Judgement
Happiness
Chances

More quotes by Agnes Repplier

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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
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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.
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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.
Agnes Repplier
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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.
Agnes Repplier
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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
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Now the pessimist proper is the most modest of men. ... under no circumstances does he presume to imagine that he, a mere unit of pain, can in any degree change or soften the remorseless words of fate.
Agnes Repplier
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Woman is quick to revere genius, but in her secret soul she seldom loves it.
Agnes Repplier
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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
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People fed on sugared praises cannot be expected to feel an appetite for the black broth of honest criticism.
Agnes Repplier
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The friendships of nations, built on common interests, cannot survive the mutability of those interests.
Agnes Repplier
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The earliest voice listened to by the nations in their infancy was the voice of the storyteller.
Agnes Repplier
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Need drives men to envy as fullness drives them to selfishness.
Agnes Repplier
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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
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The thinkers of the world should by rights be guardians of the world's mirth.
Agnes Repplier
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Neatness of phrase is so closely akin to wit that it is often accepted as its substitute.
Agnes Repplier
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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