William Hazlitt Quotes
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A great chessplayer is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it.
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There is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body.
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Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march to dinner - and then to thinking! ... I begin to feel, think, and be myself again. Instead of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or dull common-places, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence.
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One said he wondered that leather was not dearer than any other thing. Being demanded a reason: because, saith he, it is more stood upon than any other thing in the world.
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The most phlegmatic dispositions often contain the most inflammable spirits, as fire is struck from the hardest flints.
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A man knows his companion in a long journey and a little inn.
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To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.
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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.
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Truth from the mouth of an honest man and severity from a good-natured man have a double effect.
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We are the creatures of imagination, passion, and self-will, more than of reason or even of self-interest. Even in the common transactions and daily intercourse of life, we are governed by whim, caprice, prejudice, or accident. The falling of a teacup puts us out of temper for the day; and a quarrel that commenced about the pattern of a gown may end only with our lives.
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Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that.
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Malice often takes the garb of truth.
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Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense; a substitute for true knowledge. Books are less often made use of as spectacles to look at nature with, than as blinds to keep out its strong light and shifting scenery from weak eyes and indolent dispositions. The learned are mere literary drudges.
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A distinction has been made between acuteness and subtlety of understanding. This might be illustrated by saying that acuteness consists in taking up the points or solid atoms, subtlety in feeling the air of truth.
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I do not think that what is called Love at first sight is so great an absurdity as it is sometimes imagined to be. We generally make up our minds beforehand to the sort of person we should like, grave or gay, black, brown, or fair; with golden tresses or raven locks; - and when we meet with a complete example of the qualities we admire, the bargain is soon struck.
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The silence of a friend commonly amounts to treachery. His not daring to say anything in our behalf implies a tacit censure.
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Taste is nothing but an enlarged capacity for receiving pleasure from works of imagination.
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Honesty is one part of eloquence. We persuade others by being in earnest ourselves.
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You will hear more good things on the outside of a stagecoach from London to Oxford than if you were to pass a twelvemonth with the undergraduates, or heads of colleges, of that famous university.
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The greatest grossness sometimes accompanies the greatest refinement, as a natural relief.
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The expression of a gentleman's face is not so much that of refinement, as of flexibility, not of sensibility and enthusiasm as of indifference; it argues presence of mind rather than enlargement of ideas.
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Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.
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The only impeccable writers are those who never wrote.
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Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets. We attempt nothing great but from a sense of the difficulties we have to encounter, we persevere in nothing great but from a pride in overcoming them.