William Hazlitt Quotes
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Perhaps propriety is as near a word as any to denote the manners of the gentleman; elegance is necessary to the fine gentleman; dignity is proper to noblemen; and majesty to kings.
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Men will die for an opinion as soon as for anything else.
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Books wind into the heart.
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Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it.
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We go on a journey to be free of all impediments; to leave ourselves behind much more than to get rid of others
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To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it.
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Whatever interests is interesting.
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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.
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Confidence gives a fool the advantage over a wise man.
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It might be argued, that to be a knave is the gift of fortune, but to play the fool to advantage it is necessary to be a learned man.
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Those who are pleased with the fewest things know the least, as those who are pleased with everything know nothing.
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Do not quarrel with the world too soon; for, bad as it may be, it is the best we have to live in, here. If railing would have made it better, it would have been reformed long ago.
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Genius only leaves behind it the monuments of its strength.
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The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves.
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Vulgar prejudices are those which arise out of accident, ignorance, or authority; natural prejudices are those which arise out of the constitution of the human mind itself.
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I have known persons without a friend--never any one without some virtue. The virtues of the former conspired with their vices to make the whole world their enemies.
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To speak highly of one with whom we are intimate is a species of egotism. Our modesty as well as our jealousy teaches us caution on this subject.
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We all wear some disguise, make some professions, use some artifice, to set ourselves off as being better than we are; and yet it is not denied that we have some good intentions and praiseworthy qualities at bottom.
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The perfect joys of heaven do not satisfy the cravings of nature.
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A scholar is like a book written in a dead language. It is not every one that can read in it.
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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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Some one is generally sure to be the sufferer by a joke.
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To think justly, we must understand what others mean. To know the value of our thoughts, we must try their effect on other minds.
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The love of letters is the forlorn hope of the man of letters. His ruling passion is the love of fame.