The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Topics: Feelings
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.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Topics: Potential, Greatness, Future, Ability
The wisest prophets make sure of the event first.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Topics: Prosperity, Events, Success & Failure
It is a special trick of low cunning to squeeze out knowledge from a modest man who is eminent in any science, and then to use it as legally acquired, and pass the source in total silence.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Topics: Plagiarism
There are three persons you should never deceive: your physician, your confessor, and your lawyer.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Topics: Deceit
A careless song, with a little nonsense in it now and then, does not misbecome a monarch.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Life is a comedy for those who think… and a tragedy for those who feel.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Topics: Life and Living, Life
In my youth I thought of writing a satire on mankind; but now in my age I think I should write an apology for them.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Topics: Charity, Man
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, 4th Earl of Orford
Topics: Generations
Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Topics: Choice, Man
The gratitude of place-expectants is a lively sense of future favors.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Topics: Gratitude
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.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Topics: Fear
The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveler from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Topics: Discovery
This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Topics: World, Tragedy
To act with common sense according to the moment, is the best wisdom I know; and 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, whatever it is; and despise affectation.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Topics: Common Sense, Happiness, Acceptance
I firmly believe, notwithstanding all our complaints, that almost every person upon earth tastes upon the totality more happiness than misery.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Topics: Happiness
The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Topics: Advice
The gratitude of the world is but the expectation of future favors; its happiness, a hard heart and good digestion.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Topics: World
Though I admire republican principles in theory, yet I am afraid the practice may be too perfect for human nature. We tried a republic last century and it failed. Let our enemies try next. I hate political experiments.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick British Nobleman
- Robert Walpole British Statesman
- Edward Lear English Humorist, Illustrator
- Patrick White Australian Novelist
- Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke English Politician
- John Maynard Keynes English Economist
- E. M. Forster English Novelist
- Stephen Fry English Actor, Writer
- Pico Iyer British-born Essayist, Novelist of Indian Origin
- Cyril Connolly British Literary Critic
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