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

More quotes by Agnes Repplier

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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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In those happy days when leisure was held to be no sin, men and women wrote journals whose copiousness both delights and dismays us.
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There is a vast deal of make-believe in the carefully nurtured sentiment for country life, and the barefoot boy, and the mountain girl.
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A puppy is but a dog, plus high spirits, and minus common sense.
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Neatness of phrase is so closely akin to wit that it is often accepted as its substitute.
Agnes Repplier
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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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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?
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An historian without political passions is as rare as a wasp without a sting.
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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There is nothing in the world so incomprehensible as the joke we do not see.
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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The vanity of man revolts from the serene indifference of the cat.
Agnes Repplier
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We cannot hope to scale great moral heights by ignoring petty obligations.
Agnes Repplier
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If we go to church we are confronted with a system of begging so complicated and so resolute that all other demands sink into insignificance by its side.
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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Where there is no temptation, there is no virtue.
Agnes Repplier
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Woman is quick to revere genius, but in her secret soul she seldom loves it.
Agnes Repplier
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People fed on sugared praises cannot be expected to feel an appetite for the black broth of honest criticism.
Agnes Repplier
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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.
Agnes Repplier
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It has been well said that tea is suggestive of a thousand wants, from which spring the decencies and luxuries of civilization.
Agnes Repplier