Horace Walpole

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

— Horace Walpole

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

— Horace Walpole

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

— Horace Walpole

[The] taste [of the French] is too timid to be true taste--or is but half taste.

— Horace Walpole

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

— Horace Walpole

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

— Horace Walpole

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

— Horace Walpole

“There is nothing I hold so cheap as a learned man , except an unlearned one .”

— Horace Walpole

The whole [Scotch] nation hitherto has been void of wit and humour, and even incapable of relishing it.

— Horace Walpole

The contempt of money is no more a virtue than to wash one's hand is one; but one does not willingly shake…

— Horace Walpole

Pictures may serve as helps to religion but are only an appendix to idolatry, for the people must be taught to believe…

— Horace Walpole

Nothing has shown more fully the prodigious ignorance of human ideas and their littleness, than the discovery of [Sir William] Herschell, that…

— Horace Walpole

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

— Horace Walpole

Cunning is neither the consequence of sense, nor does it give sense. A proof that it is not sense, is that cunning…

— Horace Walpole

Justice is rather the activity of truth, than a virtue in itself. Truth tells us what is due to others, and justice…

— Horace Walpole

I am persuaded that foolish writers and foolish readers are created for each other; and that fortune provides readers as she does…

— Horace Walpole

When Shakespeare copied chroniclers verbatim, it was because he knew they were good enough for his audiences. In a more polished age…

— Horace Walpole

Two large prominent eyes that rolled about to no purpose (for he was utterly short-sighted) a wide mouth, thick lips and inflated…

— Horace Walpole

When the Prince of Piedmont [later Charles Emmanuel IV, King of Sardinia] was seven years old, his preceptor instructing him in mythology…

— Horace Walpole

The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a…

— Horace Walpole

Of Ickworth's boys, their father's joys, There is but one a bad one; The tenth is he, the parson's fee, And indeed…

— Horace Walpole

Shakespeare, with an improved education and in a more enlightened age, might easily have attained the purity and correction of Racine; but…

— Horace Walpole

A man of sense, though born without wit, often lives to have wit. His memory treasures up ideas and reflections; he compares…

— Horace Walpole

Pedants make a great rout about criticism, as if it were a science of great depth, and required much pains and knowledge--criticism…

— Horace Walpole

Old friends are the great blessings of one's later years. Half a word conveys one's meaning. They have a memory of the…

— Horace Walpole

The curse of modern times is, that almost everything does create controversy.

— Horace Walpole

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

— Horace Walpole

Without grace no book can live, and with it the poorest may have its life prolonged.

— Horace Walpole

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

— Horace Walpole

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

— Horace Walpole

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

— Horace Walpole

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

— Horace Walpole

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

— Horace Walpole

I shun authors, and would never have been one myself, if it obliged me to keep such bad company.

— Horace Walpole

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

— Horace Walpole

Had I children, my utmost endeavors would be to make them musicians.

— Horace Walpole

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

— Horace Walpole

Ponder, your comedies are woeful chaff: Write tragedies, when you would make us laugh.

— Horace Walpole

It is difficult to divest one's self of vanity; because impossible to divest one's self of self-love.

— Horace Walpole

One of the greatest geniuses that ever existed, Shakespeare, undoubtedly wanted taste.

— Horace Walpole