Quotes by Horace Walpole

• We often repent of our first thoughts, and scarce ever of our second.
• Virtue knows to a farthing what it has lost by not having been vice.
• This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.
• The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those who feel.
• Oh that I were seated as high as my ambition, I'd place my naked foot on the necks of monarchs.
• Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth.
• Men are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent.
• The Methodists love your big sinners, as proper subjects to work upon.
• The wisest prophets make sure of the event first.
• 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.
• How well Shakespeare knew how to improve and exalt little circumstances, when he borrowed them from circumstantial or vulgar historians.
• Poetry is a beautiful way of spoiling prose, and the laborious art of exchanging plain sense for harmony.
• 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.
• 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.
• By deafness one gains in one respect more than one loses; one misses more nonsense than sense.
• I do not admire politicians; but when they are excellent in their way, one cannot help allowing them their due.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• It was easier to conquer it than to know what to do with it.
• It was said of old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, that she never puts dots over her I s, to save ink.
• 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.
• Life is a comedy for those who think... and a tragedy for those who feel.
• Life is a tragedy for those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
• Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.