William Hazlitt Quotes
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It is easier taking the beaten path than making our way over bogs and precipices. The great difficulty in philosophy is to come to every question with a mind fresh and unshackled by former theories, though strengthened by exercise and information.
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A King (as such) is not a great man. He has great power, but it is not his own.
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The best kind of conversation is that which may be called thinking aloud.
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No act terminating in itself constitutes greatness.
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The safest kind of praise is to foretell that another will become great in some particular way. It has the greatest show of magnanimity and the least of it in reality.
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He who comes up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a very low standard of it in his mind.
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Old friendships are like meats served up repeatedly, cold, comfortless, and distasteful. The stomach turns against them.
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Those people who are always improving never become great. Greatness is an eminence, the ascent to which is steep and lofty, and which a man must seize on at once by natural boldness and vigor, and not by patient, wary steps.
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To a superior race of being the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem... ridiculous.
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Most of the methods for measuring the lapse of time have, I believe, been the contrivance of monks and religious recluses, who, finding time hang heavy on their hands, were at some pains to see how they got rid of it.
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True friendship is self-love at second hand; where, as in a flattering mirror we may see our virtues magnified and our errors softened, and where we may fancy our opinion of ourselves confirmed by an impartial and faithful witness.
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We imagine that the admiration of the works of celebrated men has become common, because the admiration of their names has become so.
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True friendship is self-love at second-hand.
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The multitude who require to be led, still hate their leaders.
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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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There is nothing good to be had in the country, or if there is, they will not let you have it.
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The essence of poetry is will and passion.
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No young man ever thinks he shall die.
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Those who have little shall have less, and that those who have much shall take all that others have left.
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[Science is] the desire to know causes.
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No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.
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A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles.
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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. The throwing out [of] malicious imputations against any character leaves a stain, which no after-refutation can wipe out. To create an unfavorable impression, it is not necessary that certain things should be true, but that they have been said. The imagination is of so delicate a texture that even words wound it.
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We are all of us, more or less, the slaves of opinion.