William Hazlitt Quotes

Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life. ~ William Hazlitt

Envy is the deformed and distorted offspring of egotism; and when we reflect on the strange and disproportioned character of the parent, we cannot wonder at the perversity and waywardness of the child. ~ William Hazlitt

Violent antipathies are always suspicious, and betray a secret affinity. ~ William Hazlitt

I have known persons without a friend
never any one without some virtue. The virtues of the former conspired with their vices to make the whole world their enemies. ~ William Hazlitt

We had rather do anything than acknowledge the merit of another if we can help it. We cannot bear a superior or an equal. Hence ridicule is sure to prevail over truth, for the malice of mankind, thrown into the scale, gives the casting weight. ~ William Hazlitt

We are not hypocrites in our sleep. ~ William Hazlitt

Zeal will do more than knowledge. ~ William Hazlitt

The fear of punishment may be necessary to the suppression of vice; but it also suspends the finer motives of virtue. ~ William Hazlitt

Grace has been defined as the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul. ~ William Hazlitt

To be forward to praise others implies either great eminence, that can afford to, part with applause; or great quickness of discernment, with confidence in our own judgments; or great sincerity and love of truth, getting the better of our self-love. ~ William Hazlitt

If mankind had wished for what is right, they might have had it long ago. ~ William Hazlitt

Features alone do not run in the blood; vices and virtues, genius and folly, are transmitted through the same sure but unseen channel. ~ William Hazlitt

Repose is as necessary in conversation as in a picture. ~ William Hazlitt

In some situations, if you say nothing, you are called dull; if you talk, you are thought impertinent and arrogant. It is hard to know what to do in this case. The question seems to be, whether your vanity or your prudence predominates. ~ William Hazlitt

The severest critics are always those who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition. ~ William Hazlitt

He who does nothing renders himself incapable of doing any thing; but while we are executing any work, we are preparing and qualifying ourselves to undertake another. ~ William Hazlitt

The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard. ~ William Hazlitt

Familiarity confounds all traits of distinction; interest and prejudice take away the power of judging. ~ William Hazlitt

Man is, so to speak, an endless and infinitely varied repetition: and if we know what one man feels, we so far know what a thousand feel in the sanctuary of their being. Our feeling of general humanity is at once an aggregate of a thousand different truths, and it is also the same truth a thousand times told. ~ William Hazlitt

The most sensible people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world, who argue from what they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what things ought to be. ~ William Hazlitt

The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment, so that, in short, the public ear is at the mercy of the first impudent pretender who chooses to fill it with noisy assertions, or false surmises, or secret whispers. What is said by one is heard by all; the supposition that a thing is known to all the world makes all the world believe it, and the hollow repetition of a vague report drowns the 'still, small voice' of reason. ~ William Hazlitt

Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that. ~ William Hazlitt

Thus, to give an obvious instance, if I have once enjoyed the cool shade of a tree, and been lulled into a deep repose by the sound of a brook running at its feet, I am sure that wherever I can find a tree and a brook, I can enjoy the same pleasure again. Hence, when I imagine these objects, I can easily form a mystic personification of the friendly power that inhabits them, Dryad or Naiad, offering its cool fountain or its tempting shade. Hence the origin of the Grecian mythology. ~ William Hazlitt

The perfect joys of heaven do not satisfy the cravings of nature. ~ William Hazlitt

An orator can hardly get beyond commonplaces: if he does he gets beyond his hearers. ~ William Hazlitt

We do not die wholly at our deaths: we have mouldered away gradually long before. Faculty after faculty, interest after interest, attachment after attachment disappear: we are torn from ourselves while living. ~ William Hazlitt

The power of attaching an interest to the most trifling or painful pursuits, in which our whole attention and faculties are engaged, is one of the greatest happinesses of our nature. The common soldier mounts the breach with joy; the miser deliberately starves himself to death; the mathematician sets about extracting the cube-root with a feeling of enthusiasm; and the lawyer sheds tears of admiration over "Coke upon Littleton." It is the same through life. He who is not in some measure a pedant, though he maybe wise, cannot be a very happy man. ~ William Hazlitt

The most fluent talkers or most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers. ~ William Hazlitt

People try to reconcile you to a disappointment in love by asking why you should cherish a passion for an object that has proved itself worthless. Had you known this before, you would not have encouraged the passion; but that having been once formed, knowledge does not destroy it. If we have drank poison, finding it out does not prevent its being in our veins: so passion leaves its poison in the mind! ~ William Hazlitt

An accomplished coquette excites the passions of others, in proportion as she feels none herself. ~ William Hazlitt

We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects. ~ William Hazlitt

We hate old friends: we hate old books: we hate old opinions; and at last we come to hate ourselves. ~ William Hazlitt

One truth discovered is immortal, and entitles its author to be so; for, like a new substance in nature, it cannot be destroyed. ~ William Hazlitt

If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation. ~ William Hazlitt

Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.
[The Sick Chamber (The New Monthly Magazine , August 1830)] ~ William Hazlitt

The worst old age is that of the mind. ~ William Hazlitt

The true barbarian is he who thinks everything barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices. ~ William Hazlitt

There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiless, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself. ~ William Hazlitt

He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies. ~ William Hazlitt

What are the publications that succeed? Those that pretend to teach the public that the persons they have been accustomed unwittingly to look up to as the lights of the earth are no better than themselves. ~ William Hazlitt

Those only deserve a monument who do not need one; that is, who have raised themselves a monument in the minds and memories of men. ~ William Hazlitt

I bear the creature no ill-will, but still I hate the very sight of it. ~ William Hazlitt

The English (it must be owned) are rather a foul-mouthed nation. ~ William Hazlitt

Our contempt for others proves nothing but the illiberality and narrowness of our own views. ~ William Hazlitt

The Princess Borghese, Bonaparte's sister, who was no saint, sat to Canova as a reclining Venus, and being asked if she did not feel a little uncomfortable, replied, "No. There was a fire in the room." ~ William Hazlitt

Political truth is libel; religious truth, blasphemy. ~ William Hazlitt

The confined air of a metropolis is hurtful to the minds and bodies of those who have never lived out of it. It is impure, stagnant
without breathing-space to allow a larger view of ourselves or others
and gives birth to a puny, sickly, unwholesome, and degenerate race of beings. ~ William Hazlitt

The secret of the difficulties of those people who make a great deal of money, and yet are always in want of it, is this-they throw it away as soon as they get it on the first whim or extravagance that strikes them, and have nothing left to meet ordinary expenses or discharge old debts. ~ William Hazlitt

So I have loitered my life away, reading books, looking at pictures, going to plays, hearing, thinking, writing on what pleased me best. I have wanted only one thing to make me happy, but wanting that have wanted everything. ~ William Hazlitt

There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself. We cannot force it any more than love. ~ William Hazlitt

Malice often takes the garb of truth. ~ William Hazlitt

Learning is the knowledge of that which none but the learned know. ~ William Hazlitt

He is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe; not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves. ~ William Hazlitt

The pleasure of hating, like a poisonous mineral, eats into the heart of religion, and turns it to ranking spleen and bigotry; it makes patriotism an excuse for carrying fire, pestilence, and famine into other lands: it leaves to virtue nothing but the spirit of censoriousness. ~ William Hazlitt

You are never tired of painting, because you have to set down not what you know already, but what you have just discovered. ~ William Hazlitt

To be remembered after we are dead, is but poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living. ~ William Hazlitt

The florid style is the reverse of the familiar. The last is employed as an unvarnished medium to convey ideas; the first is resorted to as a spangled veil to conceal the want of them. When there is nothing to be set down but words, it costs little to have them fine. ~ William Hazlitt

The world dread nothing so much as being convinced of their errors. ~ William Hazlitt

We affect to laugh at the folly of those who put faith in nostrums, but are willing to see ourselves whether there is any truth in them. ~ William Hazlitt

A man's reputation is not in his own keeping, but lies at the mercy of the profligacy of others. Calumny requires no proof. The throwing out [of] malicious imputations against any character leaves a stain, which no after-refutation can wipe out. To create an unfavorable impression, it is not necessary that certain things should be true, but that they have been said. The imagination is of so delicate a texture that even words wound it. ~ William Hazlitt

The most insignificant people are the most apt to sneer at others. They are safe from reprisals. And have no hope of rising in their own self esteem but by lowering their neighbors. ~ William Hazlitt

He who expects from a great name in politics, in philosophy, in art, equal greatness in other things, is little versed in human nature. Our strength lies in our weakness. The learned in books are ignorant of the world. He who is ignorant of books is often well acquainted with other things; for life is of the same length in the learned and unlearned; the mind cannot be idle; if it is not taken up with one thing, it attends to another through choice or necessity; and the degree of previous capacity in one class or another is a mere lottery. ~ William Hazlitt

A taste for liberal art is necessary to complete the character of a gentleman, Science alone is hard and mechanical. It exercises the understanding upon things out of ourselves, while it leaves the affections unemployed, or engrossed with our own immediate, narrow interests. ~ William Hazlitt

There is nothing good to be had in the country, or if there is, they will not let you have it. ~ William Hazlitt

The incentive to ambition is the love of power. ~ William Hazlitt

A thing is not vulgar merely because it is common. ~ William Hazlitt

Danger is a good teacher, and makes apt scholars. So are disgrace, defeat, exposure to immediate scorn and laughter. There is no opportunity in such cases for self-delusion, no idling time away, no being off your guard (or you must take the consequences) - neither is there any room for humour or caprice or prejudice. ~ William Hazlitt

None but those who are happy in themselves can make others so. ~ William Hazlitt

It has been the resolution of mankind in all ages of the world. No people, no age, ever threw away the fruits of past wisdom, or the enjoyment of present blessings, for visionary schemes of ideal perfection. It is the knowledge of the past, the actual infliction of the present, that has produced all changes, all innovations, and all improvements - not (as is pretended) the chimerical anticipation of possible advantages, but the intolerable pressure of long-established, notorious, aggravated, and growing abuses. ~ William Hazlitt

It is well there is no one without fault; for he would not have a friend in the world. He would seem to belong to s different species. ~ William Hazlitt

Just as much as we see in others we have in ourselves. ~ William Hazlitt

Some people break promises for the pleasure of breaking them. ~ William Hazlitt

We do not attend to the advice of the sage and experienced because we think they are old, forgetting that they once were young and placed in the same situations as ourselves. ~ William Hazlitt

We learn to curb our will and keep our overt actions within the bounds of humanity, long before we can subdue our sentiments and imaginations to the same mild tone. ~ William Hazlitt

In art, in taste, in life, in speech, you decide from feeling, and not from reason ... If we were obliged to enter into a theoretical deliberation on every occasion before we act, life would be at a stand, and Art would be impracticable. ~ William Hazlitt

To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead. ~ William Hazlitt

Dandyism is a species of genius. ~ William Hazlitt

Well I've had a happy life. ~ William Hazlitt

A mighty stream of tendency. ~ William Hazlitt

Those who have little shall have less, and that those who have much shall take all that others have left. ~ William Hazlitt

Actors are the only honest hypocrites. ~ William Hazlitt

Death puts an end to rivalship and competition. The dead can boast no advantage over us, nor can we triumph over them. ~ William Hazlitt

The greatest offence against virtue is to speak ill of it. ~ William Hazlitt

The great requisite for the prosperous management of ordinary business is the want of imagination. ~ William Hazlitt

The most phlegmatic dispositions often contain the most inflammable spirits, as fire is struck from the hardest flints. ~ William Hazlitt

THE rule for travelling abroad is to take our common sense with us, and leave our prejudices behind us. The object of travelling is to see and learn; but such is our impatience of ignorance, or the jealousy of our self-love, that we generally set up a certain preconception beforehand (in self-defence, or as a barrier against the lessons of experience,) and are surprised at or quarrel with all that does not conform to it. Let us think what we please of what we really find, but prejudge
nothing. [Notes of a Journey Through France and Italy] ~ William Hazlitt

Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality. ~ William Hazlitt

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater. ~ William Hazlitt

It is better to drink of deep grief than to taste shallow pleasures. ~ William Hazlitt

The poetical impression of any object is that uneasy, exquisite sense of beauty or power that cannot be contained within itself; that is impatient of all limit; that (as flame bends to flame) strives to link itself to some other image of kindred beauty or grandeur; to enshrine itself, as it were, in the highest forms of fancy, and to relieve the aching sense of pleasure by expressing it in the boldest manner. ~ William Hazlitt

Men of the greatest genius are not always the most prodigal of their encomiums. But then it is when their range of power is confined, and they have in fact little perception, except of their own particular kind of excellence. ~ William Hazlitt

If our hours were all serene, we might probably take almost as little note of them as the dial does of those that are clouded. ~ William Hazlitt

But of all footmen the lowest class is literary footmen. ~ William Hazlitt

Habit in most cases hardens and encrusts by taking away the keener edge of our sensations: but does it not in others quicken and refine, by giving a mechanical facility and by engrafting an acquired sense? ~ William Hazlitt

The last sort I shall mention are verbal critics - mere word-catchers, fellows that pick out a word in a sentence and a sentence in a volume, and tell you it is wrong. The title of Ultra-Crepidarian critics has been given to a variety of this species. ~ William Hazlitt

Mankind are an incorrigible race. Give them but bugbears and idols
it is all that they ask; the distinctions of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, are worse than indifferent to them. ~ William Hazlitt

No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history. ~ William Hazlitt

He who is as faithful to his principles as he is to himself is the true partisan. ~ William Hazlitt

Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity. ~ William Hazlitt

We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts. ~ William Hazlitt