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Now the pessimist proper is the most modest of men. ... under no circumstances does he presume to imagine that he, a mere unit of pain, can in any degree change or soften the remorseless words of fate.

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
Fate
Pessimist
Circumstances
Pessimism
Imagine
Units
Words
Modest
Pain
Proper
Remorseless
Change
Degree
Soften
Doe
Degrees
Presume
Men
Mere
Unit

More quotes by Agnes Repplier

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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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It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.
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A puppy is but a dog, plus high spirits, and minus common sense.
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The comfortable thing about the study of history is that it inclines us to think hopefully of our own times.
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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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It is in his pleasure that a man really lives.
Agnes Repplier
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Next to the joy of the egotist is the joy of the detractor.
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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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People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization.
Agnes Repplier
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A dead grief is easier to bear than a live trouble.
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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To have given pleasure to one human being is a recollection that sweetens life.
Agnes Repplier
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I am eighty years old. There seems to be nothing to add to this statement. I have reached the age of undecorated facts - facts that refuse to be softened by sentiment, or confused by nobility of phrase.
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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Who that has plodded on to middle age would take back upon his shoulders ten of the vanished years, with their mingled pleasures and pains? Who would return to the youth he is forever pretending to regret?
Agnes Repplier
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It is not begging but the beggar, who has forfeited favor with the elect.
Agnes Repplier
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English civilization rests largely upon tea and cricket, with mighty spurts of enjoyment on Derby Day, and at Newmarket.
Agnes Repplier
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For my part, the good novel of character is the novel I can always pick up but the good novel of incident is the novel I can never lay down.
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
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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