Quotes by Horace Walpole - Page 3

A poet who makes use of a worse word instead of a better, because the former fits the rhyme or the measure, though it weakens the sense, is like a jeweller, who cuts a diamond into a brilliant, and diminishes the weight to make it shine more.
Horace Walpole / Politician
Cutting
Shining
Use
Copy Quote
The sure way of judging whether our first thoughts are judicious, is to sleep on them. If they appear of the same force the next morning as they did over night, and if good nature ratifies what good sense approves, we may be pretty sure we are in the right.
Horace Walpole / Politician
Morning
Night
Sleep
Copy Quote
A man of sense, though born without wit, often lives to have wit. His memory treasures up ideas and reflections; he compares themwith new occurrences, and strikes out new lights from the collision. The consequence is sometimes bons mots, and sometimes apothegms.
Horace Walpole / Politician
Men
Memories
Reflection
Copy Quote
How posterity will laugh at us, one way or other! If half a dozen break their necks, and balloonism is exploded, we shall be called fools for having imagined it could be brought to use: if it should be turned to account, we shall be ridiculed for having doubted.
Horace Walpole / Politician
Fool
Laughing
Way
Copy Quote
Shakespeare, with an improved education and in a more enlightened age, might easily have attained the purity and correction of Racine; but nothing leads one to suppose that Racine in a barbarous age would have attained the grandeur, force and nature of Shakespeare.
Horace Walpole / Politician
Age
Might
Purity
Copy Quote
René of Anjou [(1409-80)] painted a picture of his mistress's corpse as he found it eaten by worms on having it [her tomb] openedon his return from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This [is] another instance of the strange mixture of religion and gallantry in those ages.
Horace Walpole / Politician
Religion
Age
Mistress
Copy Quote
My aversion to them...springs from the perniciousness of that sect to society-I hate Papists, as a man, not as a Protestant. If Papists were only enemies to the religion of other men, I should overlook their errors. As they are foes to liberty, I cannot forgive them.
Horace Walpole / Politician
Men
Hate
Spring
Copy Quote
Of Ickworth's boys, their father's joys, There is but one a bad one; The tenth is he, the parson's fee, And indeed he is a sad one. No love of fame, no sense of shame, And a bad heart, let me tell ye: Without, all brass; within, all ass, And the puppy's name is Felly.
Horace Walpole / Politician
Boys
Father
Heart
Copy Quote
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?
Horace Walpole / Politician
Blessing
Growing Up
Memories
Copy Quote
When the Prince of Piedmont [later Charles Emmanuel IV, King of Sardinia] was seven years old, his preceptor instructing him in mythology told him all the vices were enclosed in Pandora's box. "What! all!" said the Prince. "Yes, all." "No," said the Prince; "curiosity must have been without.
Horace Walpole / Politician
Kings
Curiosity
Years
Copy Quote
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.
Horace Walpole / Politician
Discovery
Serendipity
Silly
Copy Quote
Pedants make a great rout about criticism, as if it were a science of great depth, and required much pains and knowledge--criticism however is only the result of good sense, taste and judgment--three qualities that indeed seldom are found together, and extremely seldom in a pedant, which most critics are.
Horace Walpole / Politician
Quality
Criticism
Pain
Together
Copy Quote
The prosecution of [Warren] Hastings, though he should escape at last, must have good effect. It will alarm the servants of the Company in India, that they may not always plunder with impunity, but that there may be a retrospect; and it will show them that even bribes of diamonds to the Crown may not secure them from prosecution.
Horace Walpole / Politician
Alarms
Crowns
India
Copy Quote
When the Prince of Wales [later King George IV] and the Duke of York went to visit their brother Prince William [later William IV]at Plymouth, and all three being very loose in their manners, and coarse in their language, Prince William said to his ship's crew, "now I hope you see that I am not the greatest blackguard of my family.
Horace Walpole / Politician
Kings
Brother
Three
Copy Quote
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 / Politician
New York
Boston
Discovery
Copy Quote
In the drawing room [of the Queen's palace] hung a Venus and Cupid by Michaelangelo, in which, instead of a bit of drapery, the painter has placed Cupid's foot between Venus's thighs. Queen Caroline asked General Guise, an old connoisseur, if it was not a very fine piece? He replied "Madam, the painter was a fool, for he has placed the foot where the hand should be.
Horace Walpole / Politician
Queens
Drawing
Feet
Hands
Copy Quote
Two large prominent eyes that rolled about to no purpose (for he was utterly short-sighted) a wide mouth, thick lips and inflated visage, gave him the air of a blind trumpeter. A deep untuneable voice which, instead of modulating, he enforced with unnecsessary pomp, a total neglect of his person, and ignorance of every civil attention, disgusted all who judge by appearance.
Horace Walpole / Politician
Eye
Ignorance
Two
Copy Quote
King René of Anjou [(1409-80)]was a strange compound of amiable, great and trifling qualities. He was so excellent a sovereign as to acquire the surnom of the Good. He was brave in war, delighted in tournaments and wrote on them, instituted festivals and processions, partly religious and partly burlesque, was a fond husband, a romantic lover, a good painter for that age, and a true philosopher.
Horace Walpole / Politician
Kings
Quality
Husband
Religious
Copy Quote
I have known several persons of great fame for wisdom in public affairs and councils governed by foolish servants. I have known great ministers, distinguished for wit and learning, who preferred none but dunces. I have known men of valor cowards to their wives. I have known men of cunning perpetually cheated. I knew three ministers who would exactly compute and settle the accounts of a kingdom, wholly ignorant of their own economy.
Horace Walpole / Politician
Men
Ignorant
Wife
Copy Quote
What is called chance is the instrument of Providence and the secret agent that counteracts what men call wisdom, and preserves order and regularity, and continuation in the whole, for ... I firmly believe, notwithstanding all our complaints, that almost every person upon earth tastes upon the totality more happiness than misery; and therefore if we could correct the world to our fancies, and with the best intentions imaginable, probably we should only produce more misery and confusion.
Horace Walpole / Politician
Men
Believe
Order
Copy Quote

Related Politician Authors

Zoran ?In?Ic
Politician
Friday, Aug 01, 1952
Wednesday, Mar 12, 2003
Zev Yaroslavsky
Politician
Tuesday, Dec 21, 1948
Ye Xiaowen
Politician
Wu Bangguo
Politician
Saturday, Jul 12, 1941
Winthrop Mackworth Praed
Politician
Wednesday, Jul 28, 1802
Monday, Jul 15, 1839
Willie Rennie
Politician
Wednesday, Sep 27, 1967
William Parrish
Politician
Monday, Aug 06, 1860
William Goffe
Politician
Walter Judd
Politician
Sunday, Sep 25, 1898
Sunday, Feb 13, 1994
Walid Jumblatt
Politician
Sunday, Aug 07, 1949
Wade Kach
Politician
Saturday, Jul 19, 1947
Vo Nguyen Giap
Politician
Friday, Aug 25, 1911
Friday, Oct 04, 2013
Viviane Reding
Politician
Friday, Apr 27, 1951
Vito Fossella
Politician
Tuesday, Mar 09, 1965
Virginia Knauer
Politician
Sunday, Mar 28, 1915
Sunday, Oct 16, 2011

View All Politician Quotes

Top Authors

Paulo Coelho
Lyricist
Sunday, Aug 24, 1947
Leonardo Da Vinci
Painter
Thursday, Apr 15, 1452
Friday, May 02, 1519
Walt Disney
Animator
Thursday, Dec 05, 1901
Thursday, Dec 15, 1966
Helen Keller
Author
Sunday, Jun 27, 1880
Saturday, Jun 01, 1968
Maya Angelou
Author
Wednesday, Apr 04, 1928
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Civil Rights Activist
Tuesday, Jan 15, 1929
Thursday, Apr 04, 1968
Albert Camus
Author
Friday, Nov 07, 1913
Monday, Jan 04, 1960
Martin Luther
Monk
Saturday, Nov 10, 1483
Monday, Feb 18, 1546
Michael Jordan
Basketball Player
Sunday, Feb 17, 1963
Jordan Peterson
Psychologist
Francis Of Assisi
Saint
Thursday, Jun 24, 1182
Saturday, Oct 03, 1226
Aldous Huxley
Writer
Thursday, Jul 26, 1894
Friday, Nov 22, 1963
Henry David Thoreau
Author
Saturday, Jul 12, 1817
Tuesday, May 06, 1862
Julius Caesar
Roman Dictator
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Epictetus
Philosopher

View All Authors

Horace Walpole Quotes - Page 3

App & Tools

Related Politician Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page

Stay Connected

App & Tools

Related Politician Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page