Quote

the most comfortable characteristic of the period [1775-1825], and the one which incites our deepest envy, is the universal willingness to accept a good purpose as a substitute for good work.

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
Periods
Characteristic
Universal
Substitute
Accept
Substitutes
Comfortable
Deepest
Accepting
Willingness
Purpose
Characteristics
Work
Envy
Good
Period
Incites

More quotes by Agnes Repplier

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History is, and has always been trameled by facts. It may ignore some and deny others but it cannot accommodate itself unreservedly to theories it cannot be stripped of things evidenced in favor of things surmised.
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Edged tools are dangerous things to handle, and not infrequently do much hurt.
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whereas the dog strives to lessen the distance between himself and man, seeks ever to be intelligent and intelligible, and translates into looks and actions the words he cannot speak, the cat dwells within the circle of her own secret thoughts.
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Everybody is now so busy teaching that nobody has any time to learn.
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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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A vast deal of ingenuity is wasted every year in evoking the undesirable, in the careful construction of objects which burden life. Frankenstein was a large rather than an isolated example.
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It is unwise to feel too much if we think too little.
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There is a secret and wholesome conviction in the heart of every man or woman who has written a book that it should be no easy matter for an intelligent reader to lay down that book unfinished. There is a pardonable impression among reviewers that half an hour in its company is sufficient.
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It is the steady and merciless increase of occupations, the augmented speed at which we are always trying to live, the crowding of each day with more work than it can profitably hold, which has cost us, among other things, the undisturbed enjoyment of friends. Friendship takes time, and we have no time to give it.
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Need drives men to envy as fullness drives them to selfishness.
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Our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage.
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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.
Agnes Repplier
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By providing cheap and wholesome reading for the young, we have partly succeeded in driving from the field that which was positively bad yet nothing is easier than to overdo a reformation, and, through the characteristic indulgence of American parents, children are drugged with a literature whose chief merit is its harmlessness.
Agnes Repplier
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Cats, even when robust, have scant liking for the boisterous society of children, and are apt to exert their utmost ingenuity to escape it. Nor are they without adult sympathy in their prejudice.
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It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.
Agnes Repplier
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Guests are the delight of leisure, and the solace of ennui.
Agnes Repplier
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Traveling is, and has always been, more popular than the traveler.
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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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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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What puzzles most of us are the things which have been left in the movies rather than the things which have been taken out.
Agnes Repplier