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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

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Agnes Repplier
Age: 92 †
Born: 1858
Born: April 1
Died: 1950
Died: December 15
Biographer
Essayist
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Laughter
Merriment
Moved
Amused
Serious
Seriousness
Often
Occasion
Reason
Freely
Invited
Calls
Occasions
Correspondingly

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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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The thinkers of the world should by rights be guardians of the world's mirth.
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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.
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It is not what we learn in conversation that enriches us. It is the elation that comes of swift contact with tingling currents of thought.
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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.
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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.
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There is nothing in the world so incomprehensible as the joke we do not see.
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It is in his pleasure that a man really lives it is from his leisure that he constructs the true fabric of self.
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We have but the memories of past good cheer, we have but the echoes of departed laughter. In vain we look and listen for the mirth that has died away. In vain we seek to question the gray ghosts of old-time revelers.
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We cannot learn to love other tourists,-the laws of nature forbid it,-but, meditating soberly on the impossibility of their loving us, we may reach some common platform of tolerance, some common exchange of recognition and amenity.
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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.
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We owe to one another all the wit and good humour we can command and nothing so clears our mental vistas as sympathetic and intelligent conversation.
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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.
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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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Woman is quick to revere genius, but in her secret soul she seldom loves it.
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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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Wit is as infinite as love, and a deal more lasting in its qualities.
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to be civilized is to be incapable of giving unnecessary offense, it is to have some quality of consideration for all who cross our path.
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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.
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