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

Horace Walpole

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Horace Walpole
Age: 79 †
Born: 1717
Born: September 24
Died: 1797
Died: March 2
Autobiographer
Novelist
Politician
Writer
London
England
Sir Horace Walpole
Horatio Walpole
1st Baron Walpole
Horace Walpole
Earl of Orford
Onuphrio Muralto
Horatio Walpole
4th Earl of Orford
Horatio Walpole
Thing
Favourite
Things
Interested
Life
Thousand
Learning
Secret
Wells
Well
Whole
Profoundly

More quotes by Horace Walpole

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I know that I have had friends who would never have vexed or betrayed me, if they had walked on all fours.
Horace Walpole
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Two clergymen disputing whether ordination would be valid without the imposition of both hands, the more formal one said, Do you think the Holy Dove could fly down with only one wing?
Horace Walpole
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Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth.
Horace Walpole
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Who has begun has half done. Have the courage to be wise. Begin!
Horace Walpole
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The wisest prophets make sure of the event first.
Horace Walpole
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The best sun we have is made of Newcastle coal, and I am determined never to reckon upon any other.
Horace Walpole
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[King René of Anjou (1409-80)] would not listen to the news of his son having lost the Kingdom of Naples, because he would not bedisturbed when painting a picture of a partridge.
Horace Walpole
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Dr. Calder [a Unitarian minister] said of Dr. [Samuel] Johnson on the publications of Boswell and Mrs. Piozzi, that he was like Actaeon, torn to pieces by his own pack.
Horace Walpole
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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.
Horace Walpole
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Let the French but have England, and they won't want to conquer it.
Horace Walpole
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I shun authors, and would never have been one myself, if it obliged me to keep such bad company.
Horace Walpole
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At last some curious traveller from Lima will visit England, and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul's, like the editions of Baalbec and Palmyra.
Horace Walpole
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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
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Perhaps those, who, trembling most, maintain a dignity in their fate, are the bravest: resolution on reflection is real courage.
Horace Walpole
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Mystery is the wisdom of blockheads.
Horace Walpole
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Plot, rules, nor even poetry, are not half so great beauties in tragedy or comedy as a just imitation of nature, of character, of the passions and their operations in diversified situations.
Horace Walpole
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I look upon paradoxes as the impotent efforts of men who, not having capacity to draw attention and celebrity from good sense, fly to eccentricities to make themselves noted.
Horace Walpole
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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
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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
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In science, mistakes always precede the truth
Horace Walpole