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

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
Ideals
Achievement
Teases
Sorry
Tease
Possibility
Achievements
Democracy
Realities
Forever
Contrast
Reality
Heroic
Possibilities

More quotes by Agnes Repplier

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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.
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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.
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Lovers 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.
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The tourist may complain of other tourists but he would be lost without them. He may find them in his way, taking up the best seats in the motors, and the best tables in the hotel dining-rooms but he grows amazingly intimate with them during the voyage, and not infrequently marries one of them when it is over.
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If history in the making be a fluid thing, it swiftly crystallizes.
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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.
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Laughter 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.
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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.
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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.
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Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.
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It is not begging but the beggar, who has forfeited favor with the elect.
Agnes Repplier
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Everybody is now so busy teaching that nobody has any time to learn.
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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It is in his pleasure that a man really lives it is from his leisure that he constructs the true fabric of self.
Agnes Repplier
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There is always a secret irritation about a laugh in which we cannot join
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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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
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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
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When the milk of human kindness turns sour, it is a singularly unpalatable draught.
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Next to the joy of the egotist is the joy of the detractor.
Agnes Repplier