Horace Walpole Quotes

Horatio Walpole , 4th Earl of Orford , also known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician.He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, south-west London, reviving the Gothic style some decades before his Victorian successors. His literary reputation rests on the first Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto , and his Letters, which are of significant social and political interest. They have been published by Yale University Press in 48 volumes.He was the son of the first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. As Horace Walpole was childless, on his death his barony of Walpole descended to his cousin of the same surname, who created the new Earl of Orford. Wikipedia  

✵ 24. September 1717 – 2. March 1797
Horace Walpole photo

Works

The Castle of Otranto
Horace Walpole
Horace Walpole: 33   quotes 2   likes

Famous Horace Walpole Quotes

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

As quoted in The Christian Leader, Vol. 37, Issue 7 (17 February 1934)

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

Letter to Anne, Countess of Ossory, (16 August 1776)
A favourite saying of Walpole's, it is repeated in other of his letters, and might be derived from a similar statement attributed to Jean de La Bruyère, though unsourced: "Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think". An earlier form occurs in another published letter:
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.
Letter to Sir Horace Mann (31 December 1769)
Variant: The world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel.

Horace Walpole Quotes about men

“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.”

As quoted in "The Works of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford" in The Monthly Review, or, Literary Journal, Vol. 27 (1798) edited by Ralph Griffiths, p. 187

Horace Walpole Quotes

“When I first came abroad, every thing struck me”

Letter to Richard West, from Rome, 16 April 1740 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo1.ark:/13960/t5p84vt55;view=1up;seq=194, p. 42, The Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. P. Cunningham, vol. 1
Context: ... When I first came abroad, every thing struck me, and I wrote its history; but now I am grown so used to be surprised, that I don't perceive any flutter in myself when I meet with any novelties; curiosity and astonishment wear off, and the next thing is, to fancy that other people know as much of places as one's self; or, at least, one does not remember that they do not. It appears to me as odd to write to you of St. Peter's, as it would do to you to write of Westminster-abbey. Besides, as one looks at churches, &c. with a book of travels in one's hand, and sees every thing particularised there, it would appear transcribing, to write upon the same subjects.

“If a passion for freedom is not in vogue, patriots may sound the alarm till they are weary.
The Act of Habeas Corpus, by which prisoners may insist on being brought to trial within a limited time, is the corner-stone of our liberty.”

Notes of 1758, published in Memoires of the Last Ten Years of the Reign of George the Second (1822), p. 226; also published as "Memoirs of the Year 1758" in Memoirs of King George II, Vol. III (1985), p. 10

“Our supreme governors, the mob.”

Letter to Sir Horace Mann (7 September 1743)

“Harry Vane, Pulteney's toad-eater.”

Letter to Sir Horace Mann (1742)

“It was easier to conquer it [the East] than to know what to do with it.”

Letter to Sir Horace Mann (27 March 1772)

“It is the story of a mountebank and his zany.”

Statement about Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, as described in Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D., in a letter to Hon. Henry Conway (6 October 1785)

“Posterity always degenerates till it becomes our ancestors.”

As quoted in "The Works of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford" in The Monthly Review, or, Literary Journal, Vol. 27 (1798) edited by Ralph Griffiths, p. 187

“Have done with this rhapsody of impertinence.”

Section 2
The Castle of Otranto (1764)

“A careless song, with a little nonsense in it now and then, does not misbecome a monarch.”

Letter to Sir Horace Mann (1774); this is derived from an proverb of unknown authorship: "A little nonsense now and then / Is relished by the wisest men".

“The whole nation hitherto has been void of wit and humour, and even incapable of relishing it.”

On Scotland, in a etter to Sir Horace Mann (1778); comparable to "It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding", by Sydney Smith, Lady Holland's Memoir, vol. i. p. 15.

“He was my counsel in affairs, was my oracle in taste, the standard to whom I submitted my trifles, and the genius that presided over poor Strawberry.”

On the death of his friend John Chute (1776)
As quoted in The National Trust Magazine, Spring 2011, p. 09

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