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Laughter springs from the lawless part of our nature, and is purifying only in so far as there is a natural and unschooled goodness in the human heart.

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
Natural
Nature
Part
Lawless
Human
Purifying
Humans
Springs
Heart
Laughter
Goodness
Spring

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Wit is artificial humor is natural. Wit is accidental humor is inevitable. Wit is born of conscious effort humor, of the allotted ironies of fate. Wit can be expressed only in language humor can be developed sufficiently in situation.
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abroad it is our habit to regard all other travelers in the light of personal and unpardonable grievances. They are intruders into our chosen realms of pleasure, they jar upon our sensibilities, they lessen our meager share of comforts, they are everywhere in our way, they are always an unnecessary feature in the landscape.
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Need drives men to envy as fullness drives them to selfishness.
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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.
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Like simplicity and candor, and other much-commented qualities, enthusiasm is charming until we meet it face to face, and cannot escape from its charm.
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No rural community, no suburban community, can ever possess the distinctive qualities that city dwellers have for centuries given to the world.
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People fed on sugared praises cannot be expected to feel an appetite for the black broth of honest criticism.
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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.
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if a man be discreet enough to take to hard drinking in his youth, before his general emptiness is ascertained, his friends invariably credit him with a host of shining qualities which, we are given to understand, lie balked and frustrated by his one unfortunate weakness.
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Letters form a by-path of literature, a charming, but occasional, retreat for people of cultivated leisure.
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People with theories of life are, perhaps, the most relentless of their kind, for no time or place is sacred from their devastating elucidations.
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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.
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There is a natural limit to the success we wish our friends, even when we have spurred them on their way.
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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.
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Science may carry us to Mars, but it will leave the earth peopled as ever by the inept.
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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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America has invested her religion as well as her morality in sound income-paying securities. She has adopted the unassailable position of a nation blessed because it deserves to be blessed and her sons, whatever other theologies they may affect or disregard, subscribe unreservedly to this national creed.
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Too much rigidity on the part of teachers should be followed by a brisk spirit of insubordination on the part of the taught.
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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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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