William Hazlitt Quotes
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By conversing with the mighty dead, we imbibe sentiment with knowledge. We become strongly attached to those who can no longer either hurt or serve us, except through the influence which they exert over the mind. We feel the presence of that power which gives immortality to human thoughts and actions, and catch the flame of enthusiasm from all nations and ages.
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Envy is the most universal passion. We only pride ourselves on the qualities we possess, or think we possess; but we envy the pretensions we have, and those which we have not, and do not even wish for. We envy the greatest qualities and every trifling advantage. We envy the most ridiculous appearance or affectation of superiority. We envy folly and conceit; nay, we go so far as to envy whatever confers distinction of notoriety, even vice and infamy.
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Silence is one great art of conversation.
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What is popular is not necessarily vulgar; and that which we try to rescue from fatal obscurity had in general much better remain where it is.
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Reflection makes men cowards.
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True friendship is self-love at second-hand.
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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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Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are disagreeable to others.
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Nothing is more unjust or capricious than public opinion.
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Grace has been defined as the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.
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Our notions with respect to the importance of life, and our attachment to it, depend on a principle which has very little to do with its happiness or its misery. The love of life is, in general, the effect not of our enjoyments, but of our passions.
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The world dread nothing so much as being convinced of their errors.
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If I have not read a book before, it is, for all intents and purposes, new to me whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.
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The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be constantly wound up.
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We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.
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Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit--or a mask.
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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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The best kind of conversation is that which may be called thinking aloud.
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We are cold to others only when we are dull in ourselves.
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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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The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure very much.
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Good temper is one of the great preservers of the features.
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Kings ought never to be seen upon the stage. In the abstract, they are very disagreeable characters: it is only while living that they are 'the best of kings'. It is their power, their splendour, it is the apprehension of the personal consequences of their favour or their hatred that dazzles the imagination and suspends the judgement of their favourites or their vassals; but death cancels the bond of allegiance and of interest; and seen AS THEY WERE, their power and their pretensions look monstrous and ridiculous.
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Envy is the deformed and distorted offspring of egotism; and when we reflect on the strange and disproportioned character of the parent, we cannot wonder at the perversity and waywardness of the child.