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I have sometimes seen women, who would have been sensible enough, if they would have been content not to be called women of sense--but by aiming at what they had not, they only proved absurd--for sense cannot be counterfeited.

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
Sometimes
Absurd
Would
Content
Seen
Called
Counterfeited
Sense
Misogyny
Cannot
Aiming
Women
Proved
Enough
Sensible

More quotes by Horace Walpole

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Foolish writers and readers are created for each other.
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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When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by nettles.
Horace Walpole
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I firmly believe, notwithstanding all our complaints, that almost every person upon earth tastes upon the totality more happiness than misery.
Horace Walpole
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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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My aversion to them...springs from the perniciousness of that sect to society-I hate Papists, as a man, not as a Protestant. If Papists were only enemies to the religion of other men, I should overlook their errors. As they are foes to liberty, I cannot forgive them.
Horace Walpole
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Exercise is the worst thing in the world and as bad an invention as gunpowder.
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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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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It was easier to conquer it than to know what to do with it.
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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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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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
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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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An ancient prophecy ... pronounced, That the castle and lordship of Otranto should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it!
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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Without grace no book can live, and with it the poorest may have its life prolonged.
Horace Walpole
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Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.
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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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