Horace Walpole
Horace Walpole
Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford— also known as Horace Walpole — was an English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth24 September 1717
thinking hands wings
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?
light satisfaction results
It amazes me when I hear any person prefer blindness to deafness. Such a person must have a terrible dread of being alone. Blindness makes one totally dependent on others, and deprives us of every satisfaction that results from light.
responsibility garden optimism
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.
queens hands drawing
In the drawing room [of the Queen's palace] hung a Venus and Cupid by Michaelangelo, in which, instead of a bit of drapery, the painter has placed Cupid's foot between Venus's thighs. Queen Caroline asked General Guise, an old connoisseur, if it was not a very fine piece? He replied "Madam, the painter was a fool, for he has placed the foot where the hand should be.
age might taste
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.
pieces drs said
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.
women baths judgment
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.
women sometimes enough
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.
religion age mistress
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.
religion genius lines
That strange premature genius Chatterton has couched in one line the quintessence of what Voltaire has said in many pages: "Reason, a thorn in Revelation's side.
writing doe ugly
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.
money men hands
The contempt of money is no more a virtue than to wash one's hand is one; but one does not willingly shake hands with a man that never washes his.
writing ink cold
Every drop of ink in my pen ran cold.
doe modern curse
The curse of modern times is, that almost everything does create controversy.