Hugh Walpole Quotations

Happiness comes from... some curious adjustment to life.

In all science, error precedes the truth, and it is better it should go first than last.

Don't play for safety - it's the most dangerous thing in the world.

I almost think there is no wisdom comparable to that of exchanging what is called the realities of life for dreams

Men are often capable of greater things than they perform.

Tisn't life that matters! 'Tis the courage you bring to it.

Art and life ought to be hurriedly remarried and brought to live together.

The happiest people I have known in this world have been the Saints-and, after these, the men and women who get immediate and conscious enjoyment from little things.

All paraphrases and expletives are so much in disuse that soon the only way of making love will be to say, "Lie down.

Don't play for safety

The most wonderful of all things in life, I believe, is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship has a glowing depth, beauty, and joy as the years increase.

A bibliomaniac is one to whom books are like bottles of whiskey to the inebriate, to whom anything that is between covers has an intoxicating savor.

[A distressing event] came like a door banging on to a silent room.

Over this country, when the giant Eagle flings the shadow of his wing, the land is darkened. So compact is it that the wing covers all its extent in one pause of the flight. The sea breaks on the pale line of the shore; to the Eagle's proud glance waves run in to the foot of the hills that are like rocks planted in green water.

I believe the root of all happiness on this earth to lie in the realization of a spiritual life with a consciousness of something wider than materialism; in the capacity to live in a world that makes you unselfish because you are not overanxious about your own comic fallibilities; that gives you tranquility without complacency because you believe in something so much larger than yourself.

The most wonderful of all things in life is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship has a growing depth, beauty and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing; it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of divine accident, and the most wonderful of all things in life.