Agnes Repplier
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.Collection: Book
What puzzles most of us are the things which have been left in the movies rather than the things which have been taken out.Collection: Taken
Wit is a pleasure-giving thing, largely because it eludes reason; but in the apprehension of an absurdity through the working of the comic spirit there is a foundation of reason, and an impetus to human companionship.Collection: Giving
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.Collection: Cat
It is unwise to feel too much if we think too little.Collection: Thinking
There was no escape from the letter-writer who, a hundred or a hundred and twenty-five years ago, captured a coveted correspondent. It would have been as easy to shake off an octopus or a boa-constrictor.Collection: Years
There is always a secret irritation about a laugh in which we cannot joinCollection: Irritation
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.Collection: Art
There is a vast deal of make-believe in the carefully nurtured sentiment for country life, and the barefoot boy, and the mountain girl.Collection: Girl
Tea had come as a deliverer to a land that called for deliverance; a land of beef and ale, of heavy eating and abundant drunkenness; of gray skies and harsh winds; of strong-nerved, stout-purposed, slow-thinking men and women. Above all, a land of sheltered homes and warm firesides - firesides that were waiting - waiting for the bubbling kettle and the fragrant breath of tea.Collection: Strong
English civilization rests largely upon tea and cricket, with mighty spurts of enjoyment on Derby Day, and at Newmarket.Collection: Civilization
The party which is out sees nothing but graft and incapacity in the party which is in; and the party which is in sees nothing but greed and animosity in the party which is out.Collection: Party
Books that children read but once are of scant service to them; those that have really helped to warm our imaginations and to train our faculties are the few old friends we know so well that they have become a portion of our thinking selves.Collection: Children
Too much rigidity on the part of teachers should be followed by a brisk spirit of insubordination on the part of the taught.Collection: Teacher
if a man be discreet enough to take to hard drinking in his youth, before his general emptiness is ascertained, his friends invariably credit him with a host of shining qualities which, we are given to understand, lie balked and frustrated by his one unfortunate weakness.Collection: Lying
Woman is quick to revere genius, but in her secret soul she seldom loves it.Collection: Women
Humor, in one form or another, is characteristic of every nation; and reflecting the salient points of social and national life, it illuminates those crowded corners which history leaves obscure.Collection: Humor
Wit is as infinite as love, and a deal more lasting in its qualities.Collection: Quality
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?Collection: Pain
Philadelphians are every whit as mediocre as their neighbors, but they seldom encourage each other in mediocrity by giving it a more agreeable name.Collection: Names
A man who owns a dog is, in every sense of the words, its master; the term expresses accurately their mutual relations. But it is ridiculous when applied to the limited possession of a cat.Collection: Dog
Traveling is, and has always been, more popular than the traveler.Collection: Travel
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.Collection: Children
The friendships of nations, built on common interests, cannot survive the mutability of those interests.Collection: Common
There is nothing in the world so enjoyable as a thorough-going monomania.Collection: World
the audience is the controlling factor in the actor's life. It is practically infallible, since there is no appeal from its verdict. It is a little like a supreme court composed of irresponsible minors.Collection: Actors
The age of credulity is every age the world has ever known. Men have always turned from the ascertained, which is limited and discouraging, to the dubious, which is unlimited and full of hope for everybody.Collection: Men
By providing cheap and wholesome reading for the young, we have partly succeeded in driving from the field that which was positively bad; yet nothing is easier than to overdo a reformation, and, through the characteristic indulgence of American parents, children are drugged with a literature whose chief merit is its harmlessness.Collection: Children
There is a secret and wholesome conviction in the heart of every man or woman who has written a book that it should be no easy matter for an intelligent reader to lay down that book unfinished. There is a pardonable impression among reviewers that half an hour in its company is sufficient.Collection: Book
No rural community, no suburban community, can ever possess the distinctive qualities that city dwellers have for centuries given to the world.Collection: Cities
Humor brings insight and tolerance.Collection: Tolerance
Science may carry us to Mars, but it will leave the earth peopled as ever by the inept.Collection: Mars
In those happy days when leisure was held to be no sin, men and women wrote journals whose copiousness both delights and dismays us.Collection: Men
Sleep sweetly in the fields of asphodel, and waken, as of old, to stretch thy languid length, and purr thy soft contentment to the skies.Collection: Sleep
Letter-writing on the part of a busy man or woman is the quintessence of generosity.Collection: Writing
Humor hardens the heart, at least to the point of sanity.Collection: Heart
The vanity of man revolts from the serene indifference of the cat.Collection: Cat
The soul begins to travel when the child begins to think.Collection: Travel
Next to the joy of the egotist is the joy of the detractor.Collection: Joy
Life is so full of miseries, minor and major; they press so close upon us at every step of the way, that it is hardly worthwhile to call one another's attention to their presence.Collection: Attention
The English possess too many agreeable traits to permit them to be as much disliked as they think and hope they are.Collection: Thinking
People with theories of life are, perhaps, the most relentless of their kind, for no time or place is sacred from their devastating elucidations.Collection: Talking
The earliest voice listened to by the nations in their infancy was the voice of the storyteller.Collection: Voice
There are many ways of asking a favor; but to assume that you are granting the favor that you ask shows spirit and invention.Collection: Asking
The universality of a custom is pledge of its worth.Collection: Universality
This is the sphinx of the hearthstone, the little god of domesticity, whose presence turns a house into a home.Collection: Home
There is a natural limit to the success we wish our friends, even when we have spurred them on their way.Collection: Envy
Letters form a by-path of literature, a charming, but occasional, retreat for people of cultivated leisure.Collection: People
Laughter springs from the lawless part of our nature, and is purifying only in so far as there is a natural and unschooled goodness in the human heart.Collection: Laughter