William Hazlitt Quotes
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Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes off the edge of admiration.
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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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The vain man makes a merit of misfortune, and triumphs in his disgrace.
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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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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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A man knows his companion in a long journey and a little inn.
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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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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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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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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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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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The greatest grossness sometimes accompanies the greatest refinement, as a natural relief.
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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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We must overact our part in some measure, in order to produce any effect at all.
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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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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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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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An orator can hardly get beyond commonplaces: if he does he gets beyond his hearers.
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Honesty is one part of eloquence. We persuade others by being in earnest ourselves.
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We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects.
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Taste is nothing but an enlarged capacity for receiving pleasure from works of imagination.