Famous William Hazlitt Quotations

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"Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater."
by William Hazlitt
"If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory."
by William Hazlitt
"A Whig is properly what is called a Trimmer -- that is, a coward to both sides of the question, who dare not be a knave nor an honest man, but is a sort of whiffing, shuffling, cunning, silly, contemptible, unmeaning negation of the two."
by William Hazlitt
"The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings."
by William Hazlitt
"The player envies only the player, the poet envies only the poet."
by William Hazlitt
"The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with most regret, never did me the smallest favor."
by William Hazlitt
"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."
by William Hazlitt
"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."
by William Hazlitt
"There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion."
by William Hazlitt
"There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an idiot; and an idiot has some advantages over a wise man."
by William Hazlitt
"To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it."
by William Hazlitt
"We can scarcely hate anyone that we know."
by William Hazlitt
"We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit."
by William Hazlitt
"We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects."
by William Hazlitt
"Without the aid of prejudice and custom, I should not be able to find my way across the room."
by William Hazlitt
"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."
by William Hazlitt
"Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts."
by William Hazlitt
"Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that."
by William Hazlitt
"If mankind had wished for what is right, they might have had it long ago."
by William Hazlitt
"It is not fit that every man should travel; it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse."
by William Hazlitt
"No really great man ever thought himself so."
by William Hazlitt
"Nothing is more unjust or capricious than public opinion."
by William Hazlitt
"No young man ever thinks he shall die."
by William Hazlitt
"Some persons make promises for the pleasure of breaking them."
by William Hazlitt
"People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because they excel."
by William Hazlitt
"No one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves."
by William Hazlitt
"Reflection makes men cowards."
by William Hazlitt
"The art of pleasing consists in being pleased."
by William Hazlitt
"Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them to do."
by William Hazlitt
"First impressions are often the truest, as we find (not infrequently) to our cost, when we have been wheedled out of them by plausible professions or studied actions. A man's look is the work of years; it is stamped on his countenance by the events of his whole life, nay, more, by the hand of nature, and it is not to be got rid of easily."
by William Hazlitt
"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."
by 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."
by William Hazlitt
"An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may."
by William Hazlitt
"Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality."
by William Hazlitt
"A hair in the head is worth two in the brush."
by William Hazlitt
"Everything is in motion. Everything flows. Everything is vibrating."
by William Hazlitt
"...greatness sympathises with greatness, and littleness shrinks into itself."
by William Hazlitt
"A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles."
by William Hazlitt
"A great mind is one that can forget or look beyond itself."
by William Hazlitt
"A great chessplayer is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it."
by William Hazlitt
"A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one - they show one another off to the best advantage."
by William Hazlitt
"A King (as such) is not a great man. He has great power, but it is not his own."
by William Hazlitt
"A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could."
by William Hazlitt
"A man's look is the work of years; it is stamped on his countenance by the events of his whole life, nay, more by the hand of nature, and it is not to be got rid of easily."
by William Hazlitt
"A person may be indebted for a nose or an eye, for a graceful carriage or a voluble discourse, to a great-aunt or uncle, whose existence he has scarcely heard of."
by William Hazlitt
"A scholar is like a book written in a dead language. It is not every one that can read in it."
by William Hazlitt
"A really great man has always an idea of something greater than himself."
by William Hazlitt
"A wise traveler never despises his own country."
by William Hazlitt
"Almost every sect of Christianity is a perversion of its essence, to accommodate it to the prejudices of the world."
by William Hazlitt
"An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may"
by William Hazlitt
"Amsterdam did not answer our expectations; it is a kind of paltry, rubbishy Venice"
by William Hazlitt
"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."
by William Hazlitt
"As is our confidence, so is our capacity."
by William Hazlitt
"Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own."
by William Hazlitt
"Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses."
by William Hazlitt
"Dandyism is a variety of genius."
by William Hazlitt
"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."
by William Hazlitt
"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."
by William Hazlitt
"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."
by William Hazlitt
"Envy, among other ingredients, has a mixture of love of justice in it. We are more angry at undeserved than at deserved good fortune."
by William Hazlitt
"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!"
by William Hazlitt
"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."
by William Hazlitt
"Fashon is the abortive issue of vain ostentation and exclusive egotism it is haughty, trifling, affected, servile, despotic, mean and ambitious, precise and fantastical, all in a breath -- tied to no rule, and bound to conform to every whim of the minute."
by William Hazlitt
"First impressions are often the truest, as we find (not infrequently) to our cost, when we have been wheedled out of them by plausible professions or studied actions. A man's look is the work of years it is stamped on his countenance by the events of his whole life, nay, more, by the hand of nature, and it is not to be got rid of easily."
by William Hazlitt
"Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use."
by William Hazlitt
"Give me the clear blue sky above my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march to dinner - and then to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game on these lone heaths."
by William Hazlitt
"Good temper is one of the greatest preservers of the features."
by William Hazlitt
"Gracefulness has been defined to be the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul."
by William Hazlitt
"Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity."
by William Hazlitt
"Grace in women has more effect than beauty."
by William Hazlitt
"Grace has been defined as the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul."
by William Hazlitt
"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."
by William Hazlitt
"He who draws upon his own resources easily comes to an end of his wealth."
by William Hazlitt
"He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies."
by William Hazlitt
"He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others."
by William Hazlitt
"I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about."
by William Hazlitt
"I like a friend better for having faults that one can talk about."
by William Hazlitt
"I should like to spend the whole of my life in traveling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home."
by William Hazlitt
"I would like to spend the whole of my life traveling, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend at home."
by William Hazlitt
"I'm not smart, but I like to observe. Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why."
by William Hazlitt
"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."
by William Hazlitt
"If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation."
by William Hazlitt
"If the schemes of Utopians could be realized, the tone of society would be changed from what it is, into a sort of insipid high life. There could be no fine tragedies written; nor would there be any pleasure in seeing them. We tend to this conclusion already with the progress of civilization."
by 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."
by 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."
by William Hazlitt
"If you give an audience a chance they will do half your acting for you."
by William Hazlitt
"It is better to be able neither to read nor write than to be able to do nothing else."
by William Hazlitt
"It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter."
by William Hazlitt
"Learning is its own exceeding great reward."
by William Hazlitt
"Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted."
by William Hazlitt
"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."
by William Hazlitt
"Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust; hatred alone is immortal."
by William Hazlitt
"Man is a make-believe animal - he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part."
by 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."
by 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."
by William Hazlitt
"Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part."
by William Hazlitt
"Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labor in it, but they labor in it because they excel."
by William Hazlitt
"Modesty is the lowest of the virtues, and is a real confession of the deficiency it indicates. He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others."
by William Hazlitt
"No act terminating in itself constitutes greatness."
by William Hazlitt
"No man is truly great, who is great only in his life-time. The test of greatness is the page of history."
by William Hazlitt


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