William Hazlitt Quotes
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Principle is a passion for truth.
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The confined air of a metropolis is hurtful to the minds and bodies of those who have never lived out of it. It is impure, stagnant--without breathing-space to allow a larger view of ourselves or others--and gives birth to a puny, sickly, unwholesome, and degenerate race of beings.
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The truly proud man knows neither superiors or inferiors. The first he does not admit of - the last he does not concern himself about.
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We cannot by a little verbal sophistry confound the qualities of different minds, nor force opposite excellences into a union by all the intolerance in the world. If we have a taste for some one precise style or manner, we may keep it to ourselves and let others have theirs. If we are more catholic in our notions, and want variety of excellence and beauty, it is spread abroad for us to profusion in the variety of books and in the several growth of men's minds, fettered by no capricious or arbitrary rules.
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Well I've had a happy life.
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The way to secure success is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it.
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Habitual liars invent falsehoods not to gain any end or even to deceive their hearers, but to amuse themselves. It is partly practice and partly habit. It requires an effort in them to speak truth.
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Affectation is as necessary to the mind as dress is to the body.
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So I have loitered my life away, reading books, looking at pictures, going to plays, hearing, thinking, writing on what pleased me best. I have wanted only one thing to make me happy, but wanting that have wanted everything.
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The chain of habit coils itself around the heart like a serpent, to gnaw and stifle it.
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A man's reputation is not in his own keeping, but lies at the mercy of the profligacy of others. Calumny requires no proof.
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It is not fit that every man should travel; it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.
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The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves.
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The mind revolts against certain opinions, as the stomach rejects certain foods.
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Humanity is to be met with in a den of robbers.
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The look of a gentleman is little else than the reflection of the looks of the world.
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Political truth is libel; religious truth, blasphemy.
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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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The most sensible people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world, who argue from what they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what things ought to be.
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But of all footmen the lowest class is literary footmen.
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The art of pleasing consists in being pleased.
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People addicted to secrecy are so without knowing why; they are not so for cause, but for secrecy's sake.
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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.
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A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could.