Agnes Repplier quotes

Agnes Repplier was an American essayist and a prominent figure in literary criticism. Known for her wit and sharp insights, she wrote extensively on culture, literature, and social issues. She became one of America’s most respected writers of her time. Here are 29 of her quotes:

It is in his pleasure that a man really lives; it is from his leisure that he constructs the true fabric of self.

Agnes Repplier

We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh.

Agnes Repplier

There are few nudities so objectionable as the naked truth.

Agnes Repplier

The tourist may complain of other tourists, but he would be lost without them.

Agnes Repplier

It has been well said that tea is suggestive of a thousand wants, from which spring the decencies and luxuries of civilization.

Agnes Repplier

Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements.

Agnes Repplier

There is always a secret irritation about a laugh into which we cannot join.

Agnes Repplier

Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their earthly pedestals.

Agnes Repplier

Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.

Agnes Repplier

People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization.

Agnes Repplier

The thinkers of the world should by rights be guardians of the world's mirth.

Agnes Repplier

Edged tools are dangerous things to handle, and not infrequently do much hurt.

Agnes Repplier

The diseases of the present have little in common with the diseases of the past save that we die of them.

Agnes Repplier

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.

Agnes Repplier

Laughter springs from the lawless part of our nature.

Agnes Repplier

The clear-sighted do not rule the world, but they sustain and console it.

Agnes Repplier

It is as impossible to withhold education from the receptive mind, as it is impossible to force it upon the unreasoning.

Agnes Repplier

Conversation between Adam and Eve must have been difficult at times because they had nobody to talk about.

Agnes Repplier

People who pin their faith to a catchword never feel the necessity of understanding anything.

Agnes Repplier

A villain must be a thing of power, handled with delicacy and grace. He must be wicked enough to excite our aversion, strong enough to arouse our fear, human enough to awaken some transient gleam of sympathy. We must triumph in his downfall, yet not barbarously nor with contempt, and the close of his career must be in harmony with all its previous development.

Agnes Repplier

There is an optimism which nobly anticipates the eventual triumph of great moral lows, and there is an optimism which cheerfully tolerates unworthiness.

Agnes Repplier

The necessity of knowing a little about a great many things is the most grievous burden of our day. It deprives us of leisure on the one hand, and of scholarship on the other.

Agnes Repplier