Famous Quotes by Horace Walpole

  • I avoid talking before the youth of the age as I would dancing before them: for if one’s tongue... More
  • The Methodists love your big sinners, as proper subjects to work upon. More
  • The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a... More
  • Alexander at the head of the world never tasted the true pleasure that boys of his own age have... More
  • It was said of old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, that she never puts dots over her i’s, to... More
  • Every drop of ink in my pen ran cold. More
  • The best sun we have is made of Newcastle coal, and I am determined never to reckon upon any other. More
  • The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those who feel. More
  • The prosecution of [Warren] Hastings, though he should escape at last, must have good effect. It... More
  • When the Prince of Piedmont [later Charles Emmanuel IV, King of Sardinia] was seven years old,... More
  • Dr. Calder [a Unitarian minister] said of Dr. [Samuel] Johnson on the publications of Boswell and... More
  • Two clergymen disputing whether ordination would be valid without the imposition of both hands,... More
  • Shakespeare had no tutors but nature and genius. He caught his faults from the bad taste of his... More
  • Of Ickworth’s boys, their father’s joys,
    There is but one a bad one;
    The tenth is he,... More
  • Poetry is a beautiful way of spoiling prose, and the laborious art of exchanging plain sense for... More
  • A man of sense, though born without wit, often lives to have wit. His memory treasures up ideas... More
  • I have sometimes seen women, who would have been sensible enough, if they would have been content... More
  • How well Shakespeare knew how to improve and exalt little circumstances, when he borrowed them... More
  • Eighteen convicts being hanged in one day ... a woman was crying an account of their execution. A... More
  • Justice is rather the activity of truth, than a virtue in itself. Truth tells us what is due to... More
  • [Corneille] was inspired by Roman authors and Roman spirit, Racine with delicacy by the polished... More
  • Art is the filigrain of a little mind, and is twisted and involved and curled, but would reach... More
  • Love sits enthroned in Clara’s eyes,
    The Graces play her lips around,
    And in her cheeks... More
  • I never found even in my juvenile hours that it was necessary to go a thousand miles in search of... More
  • Defaced ruins of architecture and statuary, like the wrinkles of decrepitude of a once beautiful... More
  • That strange premature genius Chatterton has couched in one line the quintessence of what... More
  • “Heap coals of fire on the head of your enemy” Mthis most uncharitable advice is found in a... More
  • Ponder, your comedies are woeful chaff:
    Write tragedies, when you would make us laugh. More
  • [French] authors are more afraid of offending delicacy and rules, than ambitious of sublimity. More
  • Pedants make a great rout about criticism, as if it were a science of great depth, and required... More
  • When Lady Mary Tufton married Dr. Duncan, an elderly physician, Mr. George Selwyn said, “How... More
  • In the drawing room [of the Queen’s palace] hung a Venus and Cupid by Michaelangelo, in which,... More
  • Plot, rules, nor even poetry, are not half so great beauties in tragedy or comedy as a just... More
  • Cunning is neither the consequence of sense, nor does it give sense. A proof that it is not... More
  • The passions seldom give good advice but to the interested and mercenary. Resentment generally... More
  • René of Anjou [(1409-80)] painted a picture of his mistress’s corpse as he found it eaten by... More
  • If Paris lived now, and preferred beauty to power and riches, it would not be called his... More
  • Silly people are apt to say, I had rather be governed by an absolute monarch than by the mob Mbut... More
  • We often repent of our first thoughts, and scarce ever of our second. More
  • Our [British] summers are often, though beautiful for verdure, so cold, that they are rather cold... More
  • When the Prince of Wales [later King George IV] and the Duke of York went to visit their brother... More
  • Lord Bath used to say of women, who are apt to say that they will follow their own judgment, that... More
  • It amazes me when I hear any person prefer blindness to deafness. Such a person must have a... More
  • We must cultivate our garden.
    Furia to God one day in seven allots;
    The other six to... More
  • Thou loving soul with that unlovely face,
    Thou foulest offspring of the fairest... More
  • When Prince William [later King William IV] was at Cork in 1787, an old officer ... dined with... More
  • Letters to absence can a voice impart,
    And lend a tongue when distance gags the heart. More
  • How much on outward show does all depend,
    If virtues from within no lustre lend!
    Strip... More
  • When Shakespeare copied chroniclers verbatim, it was because he knew they were good enough for... More
  • A poet who makes use of a worse word instead of a better, because the former fits the rhyme or... More
  • [The] taste [of the French] is too timid to be true taste—or is but half taste. More
  • By deafness one gains in one respect more than one loses; one misses more nonsense than sense. More
  • On Charles [James] Fox declaring in the House of Commons by order of the Prince of Wales that he... More
  • They who feel cannot keep their minds in the equilibrium of a pair of scales: fear and hope have... More
  • [King René of Anjou (1409-80)] would not listen to the news of his son having lost the Kingdom... More
  • Shakespeare, with an improved education and in a more enlightened age, might easily have attained... More
  • Dear Brand: You love laughing; there is a king dead; can you help coming to town? More
  • When Sir Robert Walpole had quitted the administration [as prime minister] in 1742 ... he went to... More
  • The sure way of judging whether our first thoughts are judicious, is to sleep on them. If they... More
  • When Sir Robert Walpole was dying, he told Ranby his surgeon that he desired his body might be... More
  • Nothing has shown more fully the prodigious ignorance of human ideas and their littleness, than... More
  • Patty was a modest maid;
    Patty was of men afraid:
    Patty grew her fears to lose,
    And... More
  • King René of Anjou [(1409-80)] ... was a strange compound of amiable, great and trifling... More
  • “Heaven nor hell shall impede my designs,” said Manfred, advancing again to seize the... More
  • Manfred, prince of Otranto, had one son and one daughter: the latter, a most beautiful virgin,... More
  • “What are ye doing?” cried Manfred, wrathfully: “Where is my son?” A volley of voices... More
  • “In short, Isabella, since I cannot give you my son, I offer you myself.” -- “Heavens!”... More
  • An ancient prophecy ... pronounced, That the castle and lordship of Otranto should pass from the... More

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