Horace Walpole Quotes

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

"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."

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

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

"Every drop of ink in my pen ran cold."

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

"Life is a tragedy for those who feel, but a comedy to those who think."

"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."

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

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

"Old friends are the great blessings of one's later years. Half a word conveys one's meaning. They have a memory of the same events, have the same mode of thinking. I have young relations that may grow upon me, for my nature is affectionate, but can they grow [To Be] old friends?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The wisest prophets make sure of the event first."