Quotes by Horace Walpole

About Horace Walpole:

Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford was an English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

He was persuaded he could know no happiness but in the society of one with whom he could for ever indulge the melancholy that had taken possession of his soul.

Horace Walpole

There is no bombast, no similes, flowers, digressions, or unnecessary descriptions. Everything tends directly to the catastrophe.

Horace Walpole

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.

Horace Walpole

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.

Horace Walpole

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

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 what he is.

Horace Walpole

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.

Horace Walpole

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

Horace Walpole

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

Horace Walpole

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

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

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

Horace Walpole

The wisest prophets make sure of the event first.

Horace Walpole

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

Horace Walpole

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

Horace Walpole

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

Horace Walpole

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

Horace Walpole

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

Horace Walpole

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

Horace Walpole

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

Horace Walpole

Author Bio

  • NameHorace Walpole
  • DescriptionEnglish art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician
  • BornSeptember 24, 1717
  • DiedMarch 2, 1797
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionWriter; Novelist; Autobiographer
  • AwardsFellow Of The Royal Society