As quoted in his obituary in The Guardian (28 December 1977)
“Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.”
“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.
“Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.”
Source: I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight
“Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.”
“Life is a tragedy to those who feel and a comedy to those who think.”
“Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think.”
La vie est une tragédie pour celui qui sent, et une comédie pour celui qui pense.
As quoted in Selected Thoughts from the French: XV Century-XX Century, with English Translations (1913), pp. 132-133, by James Raymond Solly. This may conceivably be a misattribution, because as yet no definite citation of a specific work by La Bruyère has been located, and the statement is very similar to one known to have been made by Horace Walpole in a letter of 31 December 1769: The world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel.
Source: The World as Will and Representation, Vol 1
