William Hazlitt Quotes
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They are the only honest hypocrites, their life is a voluntary dream, a studied madness.
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There are only three pleasures in life pure and lasting, and all derived from inanimate things-books, pictures and the face of nature.
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Whatever excites the spirit of contradiction is capable of producing the last effects of heroism; which is only the highest pitch of obstinacy, in a good or bad cause, in wisdom or folly.
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The multitude who require to be led, still hate their leaders.
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The humblest painter is a true scholar; and the best of scholars the scholar of nature.
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Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity.
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The seat of knowledge is in the head; of wisdom, in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we do not feel right.
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One is always more vexed at losing a game of any sort by a single hole or ace, than if one has never had a chance of winning it.
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To write a genuine familiar or truly English style is to write as anyone would speak in common conversation, who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes.
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A man who is determined never to move out of the beaten road cannot lose his way.
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We are not satisfied to be right, unless we can prove others to be quite wrong.
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We can scarcely hate anyone that we know.
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The soil of friendship is worn out with constant use. Habit may still attach us to each other, but we feel ourselves fettered by it. Old friends might be compared to old married people without the tie of children.
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Our lives are ruled by impermanence. The challenge is how to create something of enduring value within the context of our impermanent lives. Soka Gakkai Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.
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General principles are not the less true or important because from their nature they elude immediate observation; they are like the air, which is not the less necessary because we neither see nor feel it.
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The soul of dispatch is decision.
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The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves.
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Whatever interests is interesting.
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We do not like our friends the worse because they sometimes give us an opportunity to rail at them heartily. Their faults reconcile us to their virtues.
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Persons who undertake to pry into, or cleanse out all the filth of a common sewer, either cannot have very nice noses, or will soon lose them.
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Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.
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He is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe; not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves.
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With women, the great business of life is love; and they generally make a mistake in it. They consult neither the heart nor the head, but are led away by mere humour and fancy. If instead of a companion for life, they had to choose a partner in a country-dance or to trifle away an hour with, their mode of calculation would be right. They tie their true-lover's knot with idle, thoughtless haste, while the institutions of society render it indissoluble.
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We are all of us, more or less, the slaves of opinion.