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

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Mystery is the wisdom of blockheads.
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Perhaps those, who, trembling most, maintain a dignity in their fate, are the bravest: resolution on reflection is real courage.
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Shakespeare had no tutors but nature and genius. He caught his faults from the bad taste of his contemporaries. In an age still less civilized Shakespeare might have been wilder, but would not have been vulgar.
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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.
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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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I shun authors, and would never have been one myself, if it obliged me to keep such bad company.
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History is a romance that is believed romance, a history that is not believed.
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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?
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Who has begun has half done. Have the courage to be wise. Begin!
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The whole [Scotch] nation hitherto has been void of wit and humour, and even incapable of relishing it.
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!
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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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The best philosophy is to do one's duties, take the world as it comes, submit respectfully to one's lot bless the goodness that has given us so much happiness with 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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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
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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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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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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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Had I children, my utmost endeavors would be to make them musicians.
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