Agnes Repplier

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

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

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

Laughter springs from the lawless part of our nature.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

There are few nudities so objectionable as the naked truth.

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

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

We cannot really love anyone with with whom we never laugh.

It is impossible for a lover of cats to banish these alert, gentle, and discriminating friends, who give us just enough of their regard and complaisance to make us hunger for more.

A kitten is chiefly remarkable for rushing about like mad at nothing whatever, and generally stopping before it gets there.

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

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