Horace Walpole
» Ambition » “Oh that I were seated as high as my ambition, I’d place my naked foot on the necks of monarchs.”
» Choice » “Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth.”
» Credit » “Men are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent.”
» Generations » “I avoid talking before the youth of the age as I would dancing before them: for if one’s tongue don’t move in the steps of the day, and thinks to please by its old graces, it is only an object of ridicule.”
» Life and Living » “Life is a comedy for those who think… and a tragedy for those who feel.”
» Misers and Misery » “It was said of old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, that she never puts dots over her I s, to save ink.”
» New World » “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.”
» Prosperity » “The wisest prophets make sure of the event first.”
» Tragedies » “This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.”
» Writers and Writing » “Every drop of ink in my pen ran cold.”
