Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Passion
Operations
Half
Plot
Nature
Situations
Character
Tragedy
Great
Rules
Diversified
Even
Poetry
Beauties
Comedy
Imitation
Situation
Passions

More quotes by Horace Walpole

Image
Ponder, your comedies are woeful chaff: Write tragedies, when you would make us laugh.
Horace Walpole
Image
Who has begun has half done. Have the courage to be wise. Begin!
Horace Walpole
Image
Lord Bath used to say of women, who are apt to say that they will follow their own judgment, that they could not follow a worse guide.
Horace Walpole
Image
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
Image
I am persuaded that foolish writers and foolish readers are created for each other and that fortune provides readers as she does mates for ugly women.
Horace Walpole
Image
Had I children, my utmost endeavors would be to make them musicians.
Horace Walpole
Image
The best sun we have is made of Newcastle coal, and I am determined never to reckon upon any other.
Horace Walpole
Image
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
Image
I can forgive injuries, but never benefits.
Horace Walpole
Image
It is difficult to divest one's self of vanity because impossible to divest one's self of self-love.
Horace Walpole
Image
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
Image
Posterity always degenerates till it becomes our ancestors.
Horace Walpole
Image
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
Image
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
Image
It was easier to conquer it than to know what to do with it.
Horace Walpole
Image
The whole [Scotch] nation hitherto has been void of wit and humour, and even incapable of relishing it.
Horace Walpole
Image
How much on outward show does all depend, If virtues from within no lustre lend! Strip off th'externals M and Y, the rest Proves Majesty itself is but a Jest.
Horace Walpole
Image
In science, mistakes always precede the truth
Horace Walpole
Image
I know that I have had friends who would never have vexed or betrayed me, if they had walked on all fours.
Horace Walpole
Image
It was said of old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, that she never puts dots over her I s, to save ink.
Horace Walpole