Horace Walpole Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Foolish writers and readers are created for each other.

In science, mistakes always precede the truth

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 firmly believe, notwithstanding all our complaints, that almost every person upon earth tastes upon the totality more happiness than misery.

The wisest prophets make sure of the event first.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Mystery is the wisdom of blockheads.

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.

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.

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.

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