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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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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
Looks
Draws
Paradoxes
Make
Capacity
Impotent
Good
Style
Eccentricity
Men
Effort
Noted
Attention
Celebrity
Upon
Paradox
Sense
Efforts
Look
Draw
Eccentricities

More quotes by Horace Walpole

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It was said of old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, that she never puts dots over her I s, to save ink.
Horace Walpole
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Our [British] summers are often, though beautiful for verdure, so cold, that they are rather cold winters.
Horace Walpole
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Had I children, my utmost endeavors would be to make them musicians.
Horace Walpole
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By deafness one gains in one respect more than one loses one misses more nonsense than sense.
Horace Walpole
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When Shakespeare copied chroniclers verbatim, it was because he knew they were good enough for his audiences. In a more polished age he who could so move our passions, could surely have performed the easier task of satisfying our taste.
Horace Walpole
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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
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[The] taste [of the French] is too timid to be true taste--or is but half taste.
Horace Walpole
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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
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Nothing has shown more fully the prodigious ignorance of human ideas and their littleness, than the discovery of [Sir William] Herschell, that what used to be called the Milky Way is a portion of perhaps an infinite multitude of worlds!
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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It is difficult to divest one's self of vanity because impossible to divest one's self of self-love.
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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Ponder, your comedies are woeful chaff: Write tragedies, when you would make us laugh.
Horace Walpole
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Life is a farce, and should not end with a mourning scene.
Horace Walpole
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We must cultivate our garden. Furia to God one day in seven allots The other six to scandal she devotes. Satan, by false devotion never flammed, Bets six to one, that Furia will be damned.
Horace Walpole
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Mystery is the wisdom of blockheads.
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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How well Shakespeare knew how to improve and exalt little circumstances, when he borrowed them from circumstantial or vulgar historians.
Horace Walpole
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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
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Who has begun has half done. Have the courage to be wise. Begin!
Horace Walpole