Top 120 Quotes & Sayings by Horace Walpole

He would be a very absurd legislator who should pretend to set bounds to his country's welfare, lest it should perish by knowing no bounds.

The establishment of a society for the encouragement of arts will produce great benefits before they are perverted to mischiefs.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

The wisest prophets make sure of the event first.

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

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

I avoid talking before the youth of the age as I would dancing before them: for if one's tongue don't move in the steps of the day, and thinks to please by its old graces, it is only an object of ridicule.

Pictures may serve as helps to religion but are only an appendix to idolatry, for the people must be taught to believe in false gods and in the power of saints before they will learn to worship their images.

Plot, rules, nor even poetry, are not half so great beauties in tragedy or comedy as a just imitation of nature, of character, of the passions and their operations in diversified situations.

Justice is rather the activity of truth, than a virtue in itself. Truth tells us what is due to others, and justice renders that due. Injustice is acting a lie.

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

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

How well Shakespeare knew how to improve and exalt little circumstances, when he borrowed them from circumstantial or vulgar historians.

Virtue knows to a farthing what it has lost by not having been vice.

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

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

When a Frenchman reads of the garden of Eden, I do not doubt but he concludes it was something approaching to that of Versailles, with clipped hedges, berceaus, and trellis work.

In all science, error precedes the truth, and it is better it should go first than last.

King René of Anjou [(1409-80)]was a strange compound of amiable, great and trifling qualities. He was so excellent a sovereign as to acquire the surnom of the Good. He was brave in war, delighted in tournaments and wrote on them, instituted festivals and processions, partly religious and partly burlesque, was a fond husband, a romantic lover, a good painter for that age, and a true philosopher.

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.

The best philosophy is to do one's duties, take the world as it comes, submit respectfully to one's lot; bless the goodness that has given us so much happiness with it.

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.

I can forgive injuries, but never benefits.

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

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

In science, mistakes always precede the truth

History is a romance that is believed; romance, a history that is not believed.

It is charming to totter into vogue.

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.

Fashion is always silly, for, before it can spread far, it must be calculated for silly people; as examples of sense, wit, or ingenuity could be imitated only by a few.

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

Foolish writers and readers are created for each other.

Our supreme governors, the mob.

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

Life is a farce, and should not end with a mourning scene.

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

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

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.

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

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.

The contempt of money is no more a virtue than to wash one's hand is one; but one does not willingly shake hands with a man that never washes his.

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.

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

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.

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.

I am persuaded that foolish writers and foolish readers are created for each other; and that fortune provides readers as she does mates for ugly women.

I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel - a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept.

Exercise is the worst thing in the world and as bad an invention as gunpowder.

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

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

Mystery is the wisdom of blockheads.

I have known men of valor cowards to their wives.