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A tragedy can never suffer by delay: a comedy may, because the allusions or the manners represented in it maybe temporary.

— Horace Walpole

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More quotes by Horace Walpole

Prognostics do not always prove prophecies, — at least the wisest prophets make sure of the event first.

The world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel– a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept.

Power is an intoxicating draught; the more a man has, the more he desires.

A careless song, with a little nonsense in it now and then, does not misbecome a monarch.

Letter to Sir Horace Mann (1774)

The world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.

letter to Sir Horace Mann (1770)

All Horace Walpole quotes →

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Wit's an unruly engine, wildly striking
Sometimes a friend, sometimes the engineer.

George Herbert The Temple (1633)

Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.

Karl Barth The Harper Book of Quotations (1993)

Generosity without delicacy, like wit without judgment, generally brings as much pain as pleasure.

Frances Burney Evelina (1778)

The man with the real sense of humor is the man who can put himself in the spectator's place and laugh at his own misfortunes.

Bert Williams

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Horace Walpole (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.