William Hazlitt Quotes
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Actors are the only honest hypocrites.
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The thing is plain. 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 practice. The rest is affectation and imposture.
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Confidence gives a fool the advantage over a wise man.
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Vanity does not refer to the opinion a man entertains of himself, but to that which he wishes others to entertain of him.
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Those who have had none of the cares of this life to harass and disturb them, have been obliged to have recourse to the hopes and fears of the next to vary the prospect before them.
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Mankind are so ready to bestow their admiration on the dead, because the latter do not hear it, or because it gives no pleasure to the objects of it. Even fame is the offspring of envy.
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Want of principle is power. Truth and honesty set a limit to our efforts, which impudence and hypocrisy easily overleap.
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A proud man is satisfied with his own good opinion, and does not seek to make converts to it.
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When I take up a book I have read before, I know what to expect; the satisfaction is not lessened by being anticipated. I shake hands with, and look our old tried and valued friend in the face,--compare notes and chat the hour away.
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No really great man ever thought himself so.
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The worst old age is that of the mind.
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To be remembered after we are dead, is but poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living.
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We are never so much disposed to quarrel with others as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves.
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It may be made a question whether men grow wiser as they grow older, anymore than they grow stronger or healthier or honest.
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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.
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In some situations, if you say nothing, you are called dull; if you talk, you are thought impertinent and arrogant. It is hard to know what to do in this case. The question seems to be, whether your vanity or your prudence predominates.
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A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death.
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A wise traveler never despises his own country.
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A man is a hypocrite only when he affects to take a delight in what he does not feel, not because he takes a perverse delight in opposite things.
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We are thankful for good-will rather than for services, for the motive than the quantum of favor received.
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No wise man can have a contempt for the prejudices of others; and he should even stand in a certain awe of his own, as if they were aged parents and monitors. They may in the end prove wiser than he.
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The mind revolts against certain opinions, as the stomach rejects certain foods.
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Conceit is vanity driven from all other shifts, and forced to appeal to itself for admiration.
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A gentleman is one who understands and shows every mark of deference to the claims of self-love in others, and exacts it in return from them.