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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

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Agnes Repplier
Age: 92 †
Born: 1858
Born: April 1
Died: 1950
Died: December 15
Biographer
Essayist
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Things
Satisfaction
Stony
Refuse
Collapsing
Ugly
Melt
Smile
Blown
Full
Gas
Facts
Trick
Away
Sunshine
Self
Tricks
Buoyant

More quotes by 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.
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No man pursues what he has at hand. No man recognizes the need of pursuit until that which he desires has escaped him.
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To be brave in misfortune is to be worthy of manhood to be wise in misfortune is to conquer fate.
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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.
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Personally, I do not believe that it is the duty of any man or woman to write a novel. In nine cases out of ten, there would be greater merit in leaving it unwritten.
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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!
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Humor brings insight and tolerance.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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A kitten is chiefly remarkable for rushing about like mad at nothing whatever and generally stopping before it gets there.
Agnes Repplier
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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
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Guests are the delight of leisure, and the solace of ennui.
Agnes Repplier
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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
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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.
Agnes Repplier
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Conversation between Adam and Eve must have been difficult at times, because they had nobody to talk about.
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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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
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What strange impulse is it which induces otherwise truthful people to say they like music when they do not, and thus expose themselves to hours of boredom?
Agnes Repplier
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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