Data di nascita: 24. Settembre 1717
Data di morte: 2. Marzo 1797
Horace Walpole, 4º Conte di Orford , è stato uno scrittore inglese, autore de Il castello di Otranto, primo romanzo gotico propriamente detto, e attivo in diversi ambiti e con vari interessi. Famoso fu il suo vasto epistolario con cui intratteneva dotte disquisizioni sui più disparati argomenti.
— Horace Walpole
citato in The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, pag. 132
— Horace Walpole
Letter to Anne, Countess of Ossory, (16 August 1776)
A favourite saying of Walpole's, it is repeated in other of his letters, and might be derived from a similar statement attributed to Jean de La Bruyère, though unsourced: "Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think". An earlier form occurs in another published letter:
I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel — a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept.
Letter to Sir Horace Mann (31 December 1769)
— Horace Walpole
Context: ... When I first came abroad, every thing struck me, and I wrote its history; but now I am grown so used to be surprised, that I don't perceive any flutter in myself when I meet with any novelties; curiosity and astonishment wear off, and the next thing is, to fancy that other people know as much of places as one's self; or, at least, one does not remember that they do not. It appears to me as odd to write to you of St. Peter's, as it would do to you to write of Westminster-abbey. Besides, as one looks at churches, &c. with a book of travels in one's hand, and sees every thing particularised there, it would appear transcribing, to write upon the same subjects.
[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo1.ark:/13960/t5p84vt55;view=1up;seq=194 Letter to Richard West, from Rome, 16 April 1740], p. 42, The Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. P. Cunningham, vol. 1
— Horace Walpole
As quoted in The Christian Leader, Vol. 37, Issue 7 (17 February 1934)
— Horace Walpole
Letter to Sir Horace Mann (27 May 1776)
— Horace Walpole
Statement about Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, as described in Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D., in a letter to Hon. Henry Conway (6 October 1785)
— Horace Walpole
As quoted in "The Works of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford" in The Monthly Review, or, Literary Journal, Vol. 27 (1798) edited by Ralph Griffiths, p. 187
— Horace Walpole
Letter to Sir Horace Mann (1774); this is derived from an proverb of unknown authorship: "A little nonsense now and then / Is relished by the wisest men".
— Horace Walpole
Notes of 1758, published in Memoires of the Last Ten Years of the Reign of George the Second (1822), p. 226; also published as "Memoirs of the Year 1758" in Memoirs of King George II, Vol. III (1985), p. 10<!-- Yale University Press -->
— Horace Walpole
Letter to Sir Horace Mann (27 March 1772)
