William Hazlitt Quotes

To write a genuine familiar or truly English style, is to write as any one would speak in common conversation who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes.
William Hazlitt
Wit is the salt of conversation not the food.
William Hazlitt
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.
William Hazlitt
Horus non numero nisi serenas (I count only the sunny hours).
William Hazlitt
Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.
William Hazlitt
The best part of our lives we pass in counting on what is to come.
William Hazlitt
There is nothing good to be had in the country or if there be they will not let you have it.
William Hazlitt
If a person has no delicacy he has you in his power.
William Hazlitt
A strong passion for any object will ensure success for the desire of the end will point out the means.
William Hazlitt
A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death. It not only gives us fortitude to bear pain but teaches us at every step the precarious tenure on which we hold our present being.
William Hazlitt
Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought.
William Hazlitt
The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves.
William Hazlitt
As is our confidence so is our capacity.
William Hazlitt
Let a man's talents or virtues be what they may he will only feel satisfaction in his society as he is satisfied in himself.
William Hazlitt
Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are disagreeable to others.
William Hazlitt
Let a man's talents or virtues be what they may he will only feel satisfaction as he is satisfied in himself.
William Hazlitt
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.
William Hazlitt
Learning is the knowledge of that which none but the learned know.
William Hazlitt
We had as lief not be as not be ourselves.
William Hazlitt
It is essential to the triumph of reform that it shall never succeed.
William Hazlitt
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 might have been.
William Hazlitt
The public have neither shame nor gratitude.
William Hazlitt
The truly proud man is satisfied with his own good opinion and does not seek to make converts to it.
William Hazlitt
Without the aid of prejudice and custom I should not be able to find my way across the room.
William Hazlitt
Prejudice is the child of ignorance.
William Hazlitt
The more we do the more we can do the more busy we are the more leisure we have.
William Hazlitt
Landscape painting is the obvious resource of misanthropy.
William Hazlitt
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.
William Hazlitt
Those who are fond of setting things to rights have no great objection to setting them wrong.
William Hazlitt
We attempt nothing great but from a sense of the difficulties we have to encounter we persevere in nothing great but from a pride in overcoming them.
William Hazlitt
We had as lief not be as not be ourselves.
William Hazlitt
It is essential to the triumph of reform that it shall never succeed.
William Hazlitt
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 might have been.
William Hazlitt
The public have neither shame nor gratitude.
William Hazlitt
The truly proud man is satisfied with his own good opinion and does not seek to make converts to it.
William Hazlitt
Without the aid of prejudice and custom I should not be able to find my way across the room.
William Hazlitt
Prejudice is the child of ignorance.
William Hazlitt
As is our confidence so is our capacity.
William Hazlitt
The more we do the more we can do the more busy we are the more leisure we have.
William Hazlitt
Landscape painting is the obvious resource of misanthropy.
William Hazlitt
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.
William Hazlitt
Those who are fond of setting things to rights have no great objection to setting them wrong.
William Hazlitt
Wit is the salt of conversation not the food.
William Hazlitt
We attempt nothing great but from a sense of the difficulties we have to encounter we persevere in nothing great but from a pride in overcoming them.
William Hazlitt
Those only deserve a monument who do not need one.
William Hazlitt
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.
William Hazlitt
None but those who are happy in themselves can make others so.
William Hazlitt
Indolence is a delightful but distressing state. We must be doing something to be happy.
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
All that men really understand is confined to a very small compass to their daily affairs and experience to what they have an opportunity to know and motives to study or practise. The rest is affectation and imposture.
William Hazlitt
The love of liberty is the love of others the love of power is the love of ourselves.
William Hazlitt
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 unfavourable impression it is not necessary that certain things should be true but that they have been said.
William Hazlitt
The way to procure insults is to submit to them. A man meets with no more respect than he exacts.
William Hazlitt
The more we do the more we can do the more busy we are the more leisure we have.
William Hazlitt
We are not hypocrites in our sleep.
William Hazlitt
None are completely wretched but those who are without hope and few are reduced so low as that.
William Hazlitt
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps for he is the only animal that is struck by the difference between what things are and what they might have been.
William Hazlitt
Man is a make-believe animal - he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.
William Hazlitt
We are cold to others only when we are dull in ourselves.
William Hazlitt
We must be doing something to be happy.
William Hazlitt