The Gilded Age (TV Series)

Charity Has Two Functions (2022)

Christine Baranski: Agnes Van Rhijn

Photos 

Quotes 

• Agnes Van Rhijn : Who else will be there, the latest arrivals from Ellis Island?... That woman has the resilience of a cockroach

• Marian Brook : Miss Barton is much more of a reformer than I realized.

  Ada Brook : I do admire your Miss Barton.

  Agnes Van Rhijn : Is there a fashionable cause she does not support?

  Marian Brook : Surely you believe women will vote eventually?

  Agnes Van Rhijn : Hmmm.. I believe in small, incremental change, not running around with a banner and a gun.

• Agnes Van Rhijn : You're a determined young woman, aren't you, Miss Scott?

  Peggy Scott : Is that wrong?

  Agnes Van Rhijn : Not at all. You'll meet obstacles in your way. You're a colored woman, to name two of them. You need determination to get anywhere.

• Agnes Van Rhijn : Really, that woman has the resilience of a cockroach.

  Marian Brook : Dear me, should we send John to carry out some pest control?

  Agnes Van Rhijn : If only we could.

• Marian Brook : Really, Aunt Agnes, anyone would think you were against charity.

  Agnes Van Rhijn : Charity has two functions in our world, my dear. The first is to raise funds for the less fortunate, which is wholly good. The second is to provide a ladder for people to climb into society who do not belong there.

  Marian Brook : And that is wholly bad?

  Agnes Van Rhijn : Not wholly, perhaps, but it should give us pause.

• Marian Brook : Do you like Mrs. Astor?

  Agnes Van Rhijn : Hmm, that's like saying, 'Do you like rain?' She is a fact of life that we must live with.