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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

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Agnes Repplier
Age: 92 †
Born: 1858
Born: April 1
Died: 1950
Died: December 15
Biographer
Essayist
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Anything
Novelists
Behave
Office
Fiction
Teach
Show
Business
Shows
Novelist

More quotes by Agnes Repplier

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Letter-writing on the part of a busy man or woman is the quintessence of generosity.
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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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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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
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It is impossible to withhold education from the receptive mind, as it is impossible to force it upon the unreasoning.
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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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.
Agnes Repplier
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The necessity of knowing a little about a great many things is the most grievous burden of our day. It deprives us of leisure on the one hand, and of scholarship on the other.
Agnes Repplier
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Humor brings insight and tolerance.
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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A real dog, beloved and therefore pampered by his mistress, is a lamentable spectacle. He suffers from fatty degeneration of his moral being.
Agnes Repplier
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Humor hardens the heart, at least to the point of sanity.
Agnes Repplier
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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
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The vanity of man revolts from the serene indifference of the cat.
Agnes Repplier
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There are many ways of asking a favor but to assume that you are granting the favor that you ask shows spirit and invention.
Agnes Repplier
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Men who believe that, through some exceptional grace or good fortune, they have found God, feel little need of culture.
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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Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food, and few things in the world are more wearying than a sarcastic attitude towards life.
Agnes Repplier
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Bargaining is essential to the life of the world but nobody has ever claimed that it is an ennobling process.
Agnes Repplier
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There is an optimism which nobly anticipates the eventual triumph of great moral laws, and there is an optimism which cheerfully tolerates unworthiness.
Agnes Repplier