English - Author | September 24, 1717 - March 2, 1797
Men are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent.
Horace Walpole
MenWorldCreditBillsSeldomFull
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.
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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.
SaidNeverSheOldOverHer
The wisest prophets make sure of the event first.
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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.
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Virtue knows to a farthing what it has lost by not having been vice.
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It was easier to conquer it than to know what to do with it.
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I never found even in my juvenile hours that it was necessary to go a thousand miles in search of themes for moralizing.
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Justice is rather the activity of truth, than a virtue in itself. Truth tells us what is due to others, and justice renders that due. Injustice is acting a lie.
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How well Shakespeare knew how to improve and exalt little circumstances, when he borrowed them from circumstantial or vulgar historians.
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Poetry is a beautiful way of spoiling prose, and the laborious art of exchanging plain sense for harmony.
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He would be a very absurd legislator who should pretend to set bounds to his country's welfare, lest it should perish by knowing no bounds.
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