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William Hazlitt [1778-1830] English

Rank: 101
Critic, Writer

William Hazlitt was an English writer, drama and literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell.

Friendship, Art, Travel, Knowledge, Learning, Poetry, Respect, Alone, Beauty, Brainy, Courage, Fear, Happiness, Health, History, Hope, Imagination, Life, Love, Marriage, Men, Motivational, Nature, Peace, Positive, Power, Religion, Smile, Strength, Teacher, Trust, War, Wisdom, Work

Quote	Tags	Rank
A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles.	Smile, Work	101
The more we do, the more we can do.	Motivational	102
Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the color in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty and your animal spirits.	Beauty, Health, Positive	103
Few things tend more to alienate friendship than a want of punctuality in our engagements. I have known the breach of a promise to dine or sup to break up more than one intimacy.	Friendship	104
Zeal will do more than knowledge.	Knowledge	105
We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.	Nature	106
The busier we are the more leisure we have.		107
I'm not smart, but I like to observe. Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.		108
Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.	Peace, War	109
Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust; hatred alone is immortal.	Alone	110
There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an idiot; and an idiot has some advantages over a wise man.		111
Reflection makes men cowards.	Men	112
No one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves.		113
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.	Hope	114
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.	Love, Power	115
Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.	Art	116
He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies.	Fear	117
You know more of a road by having traveled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.	Travel	118
No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.	History	119
Rules and models destroy genius and art.	Art	120
The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.		121
Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted.	Art	122
Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage, how little security have we when we trust our happiness in the hands of others!	Friendship, Happiness, Marriage, Trust	123
Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else.	Poetry, Respect	124
Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone - but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcass of friendship: it is not worth embalming.	Friendship	125
A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could.	Respect	126
It is not fit that every man should travel; it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.	Travel	201
The true barbarian is he who thinks everything barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices.		202
Good temper is one of the greatest preservers of the features.		203
Grace has been defined as the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.		204
To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it.		205
We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts.	Courage	206
We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects.		207
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.	Knowledge, Wisdom	208
Almost every sect of Christianity is a perversion of its essence, to accommodate it to the prejudices of the world.		209
A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It is a bugbear to the imagination, and, though we do not believe in it, it still haunts our apprehensions.	Imagination	210
Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.	Teacher	211
Prejudice is the child of ignorance.		212
As is our confidence, so is our capacity.		213
The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure very much.	Life	214
Everything is in motion. Everything flows. Everything is vibrating.		215
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.		216
The truly proud man knows neither superiors or inferiors. The first he does not admit of - the last he does not concern himself about.		217
Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes off the edge of admiration.		218
No truly great person ever thought themselves so.		219
The world judge of men by their ability in their profession, and we judge of ourselves by the same test: for it is on that on which our success in life depends.		220
There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion.	Religion	221
There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself. We cannot force it any more than love.	Friendship	222
To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind.	Friendship, Strength	223
An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.		224
The perfect joys of heaven do not satisfy the cravings of nature.		225
Learning is its own exceeding great reward.	Learning	226
A wise traveler never despises his own country.	Travel	301
The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with most regret, never did me the smallest favor.		302
A scholar is like a book written in a dead language. It is not every one that can read in it.		303
To a superior race of being the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem... ridiculous.		304
The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be constantly wound up.		305
Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.		306
When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.		307
The dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.	Friendship	308
The public have neither shame or gratitude.		309
We must be doing something to be happy.		310
The humblest painter is a true scholar; and the best of scholars the scholar of nature.		311
That which is not, shall never be; that which is, shall never cease to be. To the wise, these truths are self-evident.		312
He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others.		313
If we wish to know the force of human genius, we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning, we may study his commentators.	Learning	314
Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life.	Poetry	315
Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity.		316
A hair in the head is worth two in the brush.		317
Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.		318
Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.	Brainy	319
Envy among other ingredients has a mixture of the love of justice in it. We are more angry at undeserved than at deserved good-fortune.		320
Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that.		321
Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.		322
The most learned are often the most narrow minded.		323
There is no prejudice so strong as that which arises from a fancied exemption from all prejudice.		324
The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings.		325
The incentive to ambition is the love of power.		326
Some people break promises for the pleasure of breaking them.		401
Gracefulness has been defined to be the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.		402
I would like to spend the whole of my life traveling, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend at home.		403
There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain for our friends. It is little better than a piece of quackery. The truth is, we think of them as we please, that is, as they please or displease us.		404
We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.		405
Old friendships are like meats served up repeatedly, cold, comfortless, and distasteful. The stomach turns against them.		406
Defoe says that there were a hundred thousand country fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse.		407
The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases.		408
Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.		409
To be happy, we must be true to nature and carry our age along with us.		410
If I have not read a book before, it is, for all intents and purposes, new to me whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.		411
A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one - they show one another off to the best advantage.		412
Grace in women has more effect than beauty.		413
If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.		414
Those who can command themselves command others.		415
We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.		416
There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.		417
Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity.		418
The smallest pain in our little finger gives us more concern than the destruction of millions of our fellow beings.		419
The player envies only the player, the poet envies only the poet.		420
Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them to do.		421
To be remembered after we are dead, is but poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living.		422
Dandyism is a variety of genius.		423
We are not hypocrites in our sleep.		424
If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.		425
To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.		426
Anyone who has passed though the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.		501
The art of pleasing consists in being pleased.		502
Without the aid of prejudice and custom, I should not be able to find my way across the room.		503
Dr. Johnson was a lazy learned man who liked to think and talk better than to read or write; who, however, wrote much and well, but too often by rote.		504
It is better to be able neither to read nor write than to be able to do nothing else.		505
One shining quality lends a lustre to another, or hides some glaring defect.		506
Those who speak ill of the spiritual life, although they come and go by day, are like the smith's bellows: they take breath but are not alive.		507
If you give an audience a chance they will do half your acting for you.		508
Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.		509
I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about.		510
Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.		511
The way to get on in the world is to be neither more nor less wise, neither better nor worse than your neighbours.		512
Some one is generally sure to be the sufferer by a joke.		513
It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.		514
We can scarcely hate anyone that we know.		515
Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love.		516
People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because they excel.		517
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.		518
There is nothing good to be had in the country, or if there is, they will not let you have it.		519
The English (it must be owned) are rather a foul-mouthed nation.		520
We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit.		521
No young man ever thinks he shall die.		522
We often choose a friend as we do a mistress - for no particular excellence in themselves, but merely from some circumstance that flatters our self-love.		523

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