William Hazlitt quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by William Hazlitt

William Hazlitt Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from William Hazlitt on Wise Famous Quotes.

Experience makes us wise.

Those who are fond of setting things to rights, have no great objection to seeing them wrong.

The discussing the characters and foibles of common friends is a great sweetness and cement of friendship.

It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.

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.

Every one in a crowd has the power to throw dirt; none out of ten have the inclination.

Well I've had a happy life.

We are never so much disposed to quarrel with others as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves.

The way to secure success is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it.

The world has been doing little else but playing at make-believe all its lifetime.

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

Books are a world in themselves, it is true; but they are not the only world. The world itself is a volume larger than all the libraries in it.

The greatest grossness sometimes accompanies the greatest refinement, as a natural relief.

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.

Refinement creates beauty everywhere. It is the grossness of the spectator that discovers anything like grossness in the object.

Humanity is to be met with in a den of robbers.

Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.

Fashion constantly begins and ends in the two things it abhors most, singularity and vulgarity.

I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me

Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.

We are not satisfied to be right, unless we can prove others to be quite wrong.

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

Envy is littleness of soul.

Those who can command themselves command others.

A thought must tell at once, or not at all.

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.

Truth from the mouth of an honest man and severity from a good-natured man have a double effect.

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.

Wit is, in fact, the eloquence of indifference.

Pride goes before a fall, they say, And yet we often find, The folks who throw all pride away Most often fall behind.

Love may turn to indifference with possession.

Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.

An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.

Malice often takes the garb of truth.

An honest man is respected by all parties.

The insolence of the vulgar is in proportion to their ignorance. They treat everything with contempt which they do not understand.

No man would, I think, exchange his existence with any other man, however fortunate. We had as lief not be, as not be ourselves.

Those are ever the most ready to do justice to others, who feel that the world has done them justice.

Asleep, nobody is a hypocrite

Like a rustic at a fair, we are full of amazement and rapture, and have no thought of going home, or that it will soon be night.

There is a feeling of Eternity in youth which makes us amends for everything. To be young is to be as one of the Immortals.

Travel's greatest purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

The only impeccable writers are those who never wrote.

Genius only leaves behind it the monuments of its strength.

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

We can scarcely hate anyone that we know.

To speak highly of one with whom we are intimate is a species of egotism. Our modesty as well as our jealousy teaches us caution on this subject.

The last pleasure in life is the sense of discharging our duty.

Who likes not his business, his business likes not him.

To the proud the slightest repulse or disappointment is the last indignity.

The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.

To think justly, we must understand what others mean. To know the value of our thoughts, we must try their effect on other minds.

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

Art must anchor in nature, or it is the sport of every breath of folly.

As is our confidence, so is our capacity

The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be constantly wound up.

In what we really understand, we reason but little.

We are all of us, more or less, the slaves of opinion.

Diffidence and awkwardness are antidotes to love.

When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.

The old maxim ... there are three things necessary to success in life
Impudence! Impudence! Impudence!

What I mean by living to one's self is living in the world, as in it, not of it.

The ignorance of the world leaves one at the mercy of its malice.

No truly great person ever thought themselves so.

The rule for traveling abroad is to take our common sense with us, and leave our prejudices behind.

The multitude who require to be led, still hate their leaders.

Nothing is more unjust or capricious than public opinion.

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

Vanity does not refer to the opinion a man entertains of himself, but to that which he wishes others to entertain of him.

Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.

While we desire, we do not enjoy; and with enjoyment desire ceases.

Honesty is one part of eloquence. We persuade others by being in earnest ourselves.

There is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body.

Friendship is cemented by interest, vanity, or the want of amusement; it seldom implies esteem, or even mutual regard.

He who comes up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a very low standard of it in his mind.

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

The measure of any man's virtue is what he would do, if he had neither the laws nor public opinion, nor even his own prejudices, to control him.

No act terminating in itself constitutes greatness.

Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are disagreeable to others.

Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit
or a mask.

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.

Just as much as we see in others we have in ourselves.

Old friendships are like meats served up repeatedly, cold, comfortless, and distasteful. The stomach turns against them.

People do not seem to talk for the sake of expressing their opinions, but to maintain an opinion for the sake of talking.

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

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

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.

Painters ... are the most lively observers of what passes in the world about them, and the closest observers of what passes in their own minds.

Conceit is vanity driven from all other shifts, and forced to appeal to itself for admiration.

Books wind into the heart.

Some people break promises for the pleasure of breaking them.

Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labor in it, but they labor in it because they excel.

Nothing precludes sympathy so much as a perfect indifference to it

The time we lose is not in overdoing what we are about, but in doing nothing.

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

Pride is founded not on the sense of happiness, but on the sense of power.

A great chessplayer is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it.

Good temper is one of the greatest preservers of the features.

A mighty stream of tendency.

One shining quality lends a lustre to another, or hides some glaring defect.