Quote

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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Agnes Repplier
Age: 92 †
Born: 1858
Born: April 1
Died: 1950
Died: December 15
Biographer
Essayist
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Would
Soon
Ripple
Conversation
Stroke
Gives
Tide
Everybody
Backward
Talk
Strokes
Floated
Strong
Tides
Ripples
Ends
Animation
Stirs
Giving
Variety
Stagnation

More quotes by Agnes Repplier

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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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There is nothing in the world so enjoyable as a thorough-going monomania.
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English civilization rests largely upon tea and cricket, with mighty spurts of enjoyment on Derby Day, and at Newmarket.
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Wit is a pleasure-giving thing, largely because it eludes reason but in the apprehension of an absurdity through the working of the comic spirit there is a foundation of reason, and an impetus to human companionship.
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The delusions of the past seem fond and foolish. The delusions of the present seem subtle and sane.
Agnes Repplier
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History is not written in the interests of morality.
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 diseases of the present have little in common with the diseases of the past save that we die of them.
Agnes Repplier
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Science may carry us to Mars, but it will leave the earth peopled as ever by the inept.
Agnes Repplier
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It was hard to speed the male child up the stony heights of erudition, but it was harder still to check the female child at the crucial point, and keep her tottering decorously behind her brother.
Agnes Repplier
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The human race may be divided into people who love cats and people who hate them the neutrals being few in numbers, and, for intellectual and moral reasons, not worth considering.
Agnes Repplier
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The perfectly natural thing to do with an unreadable book is to give it away and the publication, for more than a quarter of a century, of volumes which fulfilled this one purpose and no other is a pleasant proof, if proof were needed, of the business principles which underlay the enlightened activity of publishers.
Agnes Repplier
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Humor, in one form or another, is characteristic of every nation and reflecting the salient points of social and national life, it illuminates those crowded corners which history leaves obscure.
Agnes Repplier
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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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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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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 bad enough to be bad, but to be bad in bad taste is unpardonable.
Agnes Repplier
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The impulse to travel is one of the hopeful symptoms of life.
Agnes Repplier
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Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.
Agnes Repplier
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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.
Agnes Repplier