Horace Walpole Quotes

The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well.

I never found even in my juvenile hours that it was necessary to go a thousand miles in search of themes for moralizing.

Life is a comedy for those who think... and a tragedy for those who feel.

This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.

The Methodists love your big sinners, as proper subjects to work upon.

The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic.

There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveler from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.

We are largely the playthings of our fears.

To one, fear of the dark; to another, of physical pain; to a third, of public ridicule; to a fourth, of poverty; to a fifth, of loneliness ... for all of us, our particular creature waits in ambush.

Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth.

Who has begun has half done. Have the courage to be wise. Begin!

It was said of old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, that she never puts dots over her I s, to save ink.

Pedants make a great rout about criticism, as if it were a science of great depth, and required much pains and knowledge--criticism however is only the result of good sense, taste and judgment--three qualities that indeed seldom are found together, and extremely seldom in a pedant, which most critics are.

By deafness one gains in one respect more than one loses; one misses more nonsense than sense.

Every drop of ink in my pen ran cold.

Serendipity... You will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called 'The Three Princes of Serendip': as their Highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.

When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by nettles.

I know that I have had friends who would never have vexed or betrayed me, if they had walked on all fours.

Oh that I were seated as high as my ambition, I'd place my naked foot on the necks of monarchs.

A tragedy can never suffer by delay: a comedy may, because the allusions or the manners represented in it maybe temporary.

To act with common sense according to the moment, is the best wisdom I know.

Serendipitous discoveries are made by chance, found without looking for them but possible only through a sharp vision and sagacity, ready to see the unexpected and never indulgent with the apparently unexplainable.

We often repent of our first thoughts, and scarce ever of our second.

The sure way of judging whether our first thoughts are judicious, is to sleep on them. If they appear of the same force the next morning as they did over night, and if good nature ratifies what good sense approves, we may be pretty sure we are in the right.

Men are often capable of greater things than they perform - They are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent.

Poetry is a beautiful way of spoiling prose, and the laborious art of exchanging plain sense for harmony.

Mystery is the wisdom of blockheads.

Cunning is neither the consequence of sense, nor does it give sense.

A proof that it is not sense, is that cunning people never imagine that others can see through them. It is the consequence of weakness.

It was easier to conquer it than to know what to do with it.

The wisest prophets make sure of the event first.

I do not admire politicians; but when they are excellent in their way, one cannot help allowing them their due.

At last some curious traveller from Lima will visit England, and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul's, like the editions of Baalbec and Palmyra.

The way to ensure summer in England is to have it framed and glazed in a comfortable room.

Our [British] summers are often, though beautiful for verdure, so cold, that they are rather cold winters.

Old friends are the great blessings of one's later years. Half a word conveys one's meaning. They have a memory of the same events, have the same mode of thinking. I have young relations that may grow upon me, for my nature is affectionate, but can they grow To Be old friends?

I look upon paradoxes as the impotent efforts of men who, not having capacity to draw attention and celebrity from good sense, fly to eccentricities to make themselves noted.

Letters to absence can a voice impart,And lend a tongue when distance gags the heart.

A careless song, with a little nonsense in it now and then, does not mis-become a monarch.

Two clergymen disputing whether ordination would be valid without the imposition of both hands, the more formal one said, "Do you think the Holy Dove could fly down with only one wing?

I sit with my toes in a brook, And if any one axes forwhy? I hits them a rap with my crook, For 'tis sentiment does it, says I.

Perhaps those, who, trembling most, maintain a dignity in their fate, are the bravest: resolution on reflection is real courage.

I do not dislike the French from the vulgar antipathy between neighboring nations, but for their insolent and unfounded air of superiority.

A poet who makes use of a worse word instead of a better, because the former fits the rhyme or the measure, though it weakens the sense, is like a jeweller, who cuts a diamond into a brilliant, and diminishes the weight to make it shine more.

When the Prince of Piedmont [later Charles Emmanuel IV, King of Sardinia] was seven years old, his preceptor instructing him in mythology told him all the vices were enclosed in Pandora's box. "What! all!" said the Prince. "Yes, all." "No," said the Prince; "curiosity must have been without.

A man of sense, though born without wit, often lives to have wit. His memory treasures up ideas and reflections; he compares themwith new occurrences, and strikes out new lights from the collision. The consequence is sometimes bons mots, and sometimes apothegms.

Alexander at the head of the world never tasted the true pleasure that boys of his own age have enjoyed at the head of a school.

Lawyers and rogues are vermin not easily rooted out of a rich soil.

Men are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent.

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he isn't. A sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is.

Oh, we are ridiculous animals; and if the angels have any fun in them, how we must divert them!

It amazes me when I hear any person prefer blindness to deafness. Such a person must have a terrible dread of being alone. Blindness makes one totally dependent on others, and deprives us of every satisfaction that results from light.