William Hazlitt Quotes
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Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes off the edge of admiration.
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The vain man makes a merit of misfortune, and triumphs in his disgrace.
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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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Truth from the mouth of an honest man and severity from a good-natured man have a double effect.
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A man knows his companion in a long journey and a little inn.
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Malice often takes the garb of truth.
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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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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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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.
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There is something captivating in spirit and intrepidity, to which, we often yield as to a resistless power; nor can he reasonably expect, the confidence of others who too apparently distrusts himself.
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Learning is its own exceeding great reward; and at the period of which we speak, it bore other fruits, not unworthy of it.
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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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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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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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Sincerity has to do with the connexion between our words and thoughts, and not between our beliefs and actions.
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Taste is nothing but an enlarged capacity for receiving pleasure from works of imagination.
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An orator can hardly get beyond commonplaces: if he does he gets beyond his hearers.
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Fashion is the abortive issue of vain ostentation and exclusive egotism ... tied to no rule, and bound to conform to every whim of the minute.
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The greatest grossness sometimes accompanies the greatest refinement, as a natural relief.
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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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To the proud the slightest repulse or disappointment is the last indignity.
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A great man la an abstraction of some one excellence; but whoever fancies himself an abstraction of excellence, so far from being great, may be sure that he is a blockhead, equally ignorant of excellence or defect of himself or others.
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We must overact our part in some measure, in order to produce any effect at all.
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We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects.