William Hazlitt Quotes
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Some people break promises for the pleasure of breaking them.
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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.
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Good temper is an estate for life.
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We talk little when we do not talk about ourselves.
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People do not seem to talk for the sake of expressing their opinions, but to maintain an opinion for the sake of talking.
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When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country.
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There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself.
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You know more of a road by having traveled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.
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However we may flatter ourselves to the contrary, our friends think no higher of us than the world do. They see us through the jaundiced or distrustful eyes of others. They may know better, but their feelings are governed by popular prejudice. Nay, they are more shy of us (when under a cloud) than even strangers; for we involve them in a common disgrace, or compel them to embroil themselves in continual quarrels and disputes in our defense.
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Power is pleasure; and pleasure sweetens pain.
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Talent is the capacity of doing anything that depends on application and industry and it is a voluntary power, while genius is involuntary.
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Violent antipathies are always suspicious, and betray a secret affinity.
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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.
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A hair in the head is worth two in the brush.
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We had rather do anything than acknowledge the merit of another if we can help it. We cannot bear a superior or an equal. Hence ridicule is sure to prevail over truth, for the malice of mankind, thrown into the scale, gives the casting weight.
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It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.
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There are some persons who never succeed from being too indolent to undertake anything; and others who regularly fail, because the instant they find success in their power, they grow indifferent, and give over the attempt.
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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.
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I maintain that there is no common language or medium of understanding between people of education and without it - between those who judge of things from books or from their senses. Ignorance has so far the advantage over learning; for it can make an appeal to you from what you know; but you cannot re-act upon it through that which it is a perfect stranger to. Ignorance is, therefore, power.
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The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.
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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.
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He who lives wisely to himself and his own heart looks at the busy world through the loopholes of retreat, and does not want to mingle in the fray.
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Religion either makes men wise and virtuous, or it makes them set up false pretenses to both.
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The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment.