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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 delusions of the past seem fond and foolish. The delusions of the present seem subtle and sane.
Agnes Repplier
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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.
Agnes Repplier
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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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Miserliness is the one vice that grows stronger with increasing years. It yields its sordid pleasures to the end.
Agnes Repplier
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There is nothing in the world so enjoyable as a thorough-going monomania.
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.
Agnes Repplier
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fair play is less characteristic of groups than of individuals.
Agnes Repplier
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A man who listens because he has nothing to say can hardly be a source of inspiration. The only listening that counts is that of the talker who alternately absorbs and expresses ideas.
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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The sanguine assurance that men and nations can be legislated into goodness, that pressure from without is equivalent to a moral change within, needs a strong backing of inexperience.
Agnes Repplier
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Discussion without asperity, sympathy with fusion, gayety unracked by too abundant jests, mental ease in approaching one another these are the things which give a pleasant smoothness to the rough edge of life.
Agnes Repplier
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The cat dwells within the circle of her own secret thoughts.
Agnes Repplier
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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.
Agnes Repplier
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It takes time and trouble to persuade ourselves that the things we want to do are the things we ought to do.
Agnes Repplier
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Everybody is now so busy teaching that nobody has any time to learn.
Agnes Repplier
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There is something frightful in being required to enjoy and appreciate all masterpieces to read with equal relish Milton, and Dante, and Calderon, and Goethe, and Homer, and Scott, and Voltaire, and Wordsworth, and Cervantes, and Molière, and Swift.
Agnes Repplier
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There is no illusion so permanent as that which enables us to look backward with complacency there is no mental process so deceptive as the comparing of recollections with realities.
Agnes Repplier
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Need drives men to envy as fullness drives them to selfishness.
Agnes Repplier
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Wit is as infinite as love, and a deal more lasting in its qualities.
Agnes Repplier
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Lovers of the town have been content, for the most part, to say they loved it. They do not brag about its uplifting qualities. They have none of the infernal smugness which makes the lover of the country insupportable.
Agnes Repplier