William Hazlitt Quotes
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He who would see old Hoghton right Must view it by the pale moonlight.
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...greatness sympathises with greatness, and littleness shrinks into itself.
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Fashion constantly begins and ends in the two things it abhors most, singularity and vulgarity.
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We prefer a person with vivacity and high spirits, though bordering upon insolence, to the timid and pusillanimous; we are fonder of wit joined to malice than of dullness without it.
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The title of Ultracrepidarian critics has been given to those persons who find fault with small and insignificant details.
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To expect an author to talk as he writes is ridiculous; or even if he did you would find fault with him as a pedant.
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If we use no ceremony towards others, we shall be treated without any. People are soon tired of paying trifling attentions to those who receive them with coldness, and return them with neglect.
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The most rational cure after all for the inordinate fear of death is to set a just value on life.
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If mankind had wished for what is right, they might have had it long ago.
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The last sort I shall mention are verbal critics - mere word-catchers, fellows that pick out a word in a sentence and a sentence in a volume, and tell you it is wrong. The title of Ultra-Crepidarian critics has been given to a variety of this species.
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There is no flattery so adroit or effectual as that of implicit assent.
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The English (it must be owned) are rather a foul-mouthed nation.
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It is essential to the triumph of reform that it should never succeed.
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Hope is the best possession.
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Liberty is the only true riches: of all the rest we are at once the masters and the slaves.
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We must be doing something to be happy.
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Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love.
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We would willingly, and without remorse, sacrifice not only the present moment, but all the interval (no matter how long) that separates us from any favorite object.
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A woman's vanity is interested in making the object of her choice the god of her idolatry.
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Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.
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To display the greatest powers, unless they are applied to great purposes, makes nothing for the character of greatness.
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Corporate bodies are more corrupt and profligate than individuals, because they have more power to do mischief, and are less amenable to disgrace or punishment. They feel neither shame, remorse, gratitude, nor goodwill.
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To die is only to be as we were before we were born; yet no one feels any remorse, or regret, or repugnance, in contemplating this last idea.
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He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies.