Agnes Repplier Quotations | Page 2

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.

the pleasure of possession, whether we possess trinkets, or offspring - or possibly books, or prints, or chessmen, or postage stamps - lies in showing these things to friends who are experiencing no immediate urge to look at them.

Letter-writing on the part of a busy man or woman is the quintessence of generosity.

History is not written in the interests of morality.

It was hard to speed the male child up the stony heights of erudition, but it was harder still to check the female child at the crucial point, and keep her tottering decorously behind her brother.

The well-ordered mind knows the value, no less than the charm, of reticence. The fruit of the tree of knowledge ... falls ripe from its stem; but those who have eaten with sobriety find no need to discuss the processes of digestion.

We may fail of our happiness, strive we ever so bravely; but we are less likely to fail if we measure with judgement our chances and our capabilities.

We cannot hope to scale great moral heights by ignoring petty obligations.

It is not depravity that afflicts the human race so much as a general lack of intelligence.

To be brave in misfortune is to be worthy of manhood; to be wise in misfortune is to conquer fate.