William Hazlitt
218 quotes
Biography
William Hazlitt was an English essayist, 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.
"Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses."
"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."
"Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted."
"There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself. We cannot force it any more than love."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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!"
"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."
"Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own."[The Sick Chamber (The New Monthly Magazine , August 1830)]"
"the old maxim... "there are three things necessary to success in life--Impudence! Impudence! Impudence!"
"The path of genius is free, and its own"
"Just as much as we see in others we have in ourselves."
"Those who aim at faultless regularity will only produce mediocrity, and no one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves."
"We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts."
"Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the colour in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty, and your animal spirits, and you will pass for a fine man."
"You know more of a road by having travelled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world."
"The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much."
"A scholar is like a book written in a dead language — it is not every one that can read in it."
"I hate to be near the sea, and to hear it roaring and raging like a wild beast in its den. It puts me in mind of the everlasting efforts of the human mind, struggling to be free, and ending just where it began."
"Man is a make-believe animal — he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part."
"If a person has no delicacy, he has you in his power, for you necessarily feel some towards him; and since he will take no denial, you must comply with his peremptory demands, or send for a constable, which out of respect for his character you will not do."
"Belief is with them mechanical, voluntary: they believe what they are paid for — they swear to that which turns to account. Do you suppose, that after years spent in this manner, they have any feeling left answering to the difference between truth and falsehood?"
"The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness, than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings."
"The origin of all science is in the desire to know causes; and the origin of all false science and imposture is in the desire to accept false causes rather than none; or, which is the same thing, in the unwillingness to acknowledge our own ignorance."