William Hazlitt Quotes
-
He who draws upon his own resources easily comes to an end of his wealth.
→ -
The present is an age of talkers, and not of doers; and the reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in the Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, and dote on past achievement.
→ -
Any one may mouth out a passage with a theatrical cadence, or get upon stilts to tell his thoughts; but to write or speak with propriety and simplicity is a more difficult task. Thus it is easy to affect a pompous style, to use a word twice as big as the thing you want to express; it is not so easy to pitch upon the very word that exactly fits it.
→ -
There are only three pleasures in life pure and lasting, and all derived from inanimate things-books, pictures and the face of nature.
→ -
Natural affection is a prejudice; for though we have cause to love our nearest connections better than others, we have no reason to think them better than others.
→ -
Persons who undertake to pry into, or cleanse out all the filth of a common sewer, either cannot have very nice noses, or will soon lose them.
→ -
Political truth is libel; religious truth, blasphemy.
→ -
Those who have little shall have less, and that those who have much shall take all that others have left.
→ -
I am proud up to the point of equality; everything above or below that appears to me arrant impertinence or abject meanness.
→ -
There is some virtue in almost every vice, except hypocrisy; and even that, while it is a mockery of virtue, is at the same time a compliment to it.
→ -
Fashion is the abortive issue of vain ostentation and exclusive egotism ... tied to no rule, and bound to conform to every whim of the minute.
→ -
The youth is better than the old age of friendship.
→ -
The art of pleasing consists in being pleased.
→ -
The seat of knowledge is in the head; of wisdom, in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we do not feel right.
→ -
A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one - they show one another off to the best advantage.
→ -
Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.
→ -
Silence is one great art of conversation. He is not a fool who knows when to hold his tongue; and a person may gain credit for sense, eloquence, wit, who merely says nothing to lessen the opinion which others have of these qualities in themselves.
→ -
Violence ever defeats its own ends. Where you cannot drive you can always persuade. A gentle word, a kind look, a god-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles. There is a secret pride in every human heart than revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.
→ -
Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.
→ -
Greatness is great power, producing great effects. It is not enough that a man has great power in himself, he must shew it to all the world in a way that cannot be hid or gainsaid.
→ -
Landscape painting is the obvious resource of misanthropy.
→ -
There are names written in her immortal scroll at which Fame blushes!
→ -
The public have neither shame or gratitude.
→ -
A mighty stream of tendency.
→ -
Learning is its own exceeding great reward.
→ -
Humour is the describing the ludicrous as it is in itself; wit is the exposing it, by comparing or contrasting it with something else. Humour is, as it were, the growth of nature and accident; wit is the product of art and fancy.
→ -
One truth discovered, one pang of regret at not being able to express it, is better than all the fluency and flippancy in the world.
→ -
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.
→ -
The expression of a gentleman's face is not so much that of refinement, as of flexibility, not of sensibility and enthusiasm as of indifference; it argues presence of mind rather than enlargement of ideas.
→ -
The wretched are in this respect fortunate, that they have the strongest yearning after happiness; and to desire is in some sense to enjoy.
→