Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Agnes Repplier
Age: 92 †
Born: 1858
Born: April 1
Died: 1950
Died: December 15
Biographer
Essayist
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Thing
Books
Printing
Trying
Read
Trace
Made
Seems
Purely
Back
Bought
Firsts
Presses
Book
Line
First
Modern
Great
Lines
Dividing

More quotes by Agnes Repplier

Image
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.
Agnes Repplier
Image
The earliest voice listened to by the nations in their infancy was the voice of the storyteller.
Agnes Repplier
Image
There are few nudities so objectionable as the naked truth.
Agnes Repplier
Image
It is bad enough to be bad, but to be bad in bad taste is unpardonable.
Agnes Repplier
Image
The clear-sighted do not rule the world, but they sustain and console it.
Agnes Repplier
Image
There is nothing in the world so incomprehensible as the joke we do not see.
Agnes Repplier
Image
Innovations to which we are not committed are illuminating things.
Agnes Repplier
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
A kitten is the most irresistible comedian in the world. Its wide-open eyes gleam with wonder and mirth. It darts madly at nothing at all, and then, as though suddenly checked in the pursuit, prances sideways on its hind legs with ridiculous agility and zeal.
Agnes Repplier
Image
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
Image
There is no illusion so permanent as that which enables us to look backward with complacency there is no mental process so deceptive as the comparing of recollections with realities.
Agnes Repplier
Image
It is not the office of a novelist to show us how to behave ourselves it is not the business of fiction to teach us anything.
Agnes Repplier
Image
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.
Agnes Repplier
Image
Where there is no temptation, there is no virtue.
Agnes Repplier
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
Agnes Repplier
Image
The vanity of man revolts from the serene indifference of the cat.
Agnes Repplier