William Hazlitt Quotes
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The amiable is the voluptuous in expression or manner. The sense of pleasure in ourselves is that which excites it in others; or, the art of pleasing is to seem pleased.
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Like a rustic at a fair, we are full of amazement and rapture, and have no thought of going home, or that it will soon be night.
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The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with most regret, never did me the smallest favor.
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Refinement creates beauty everywhere. It is the grossness of the spectator that discovers anything like grossness in the object.
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Art must anchor in nature, or it is the sport of every breath of folly.
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The difference between the vanity of a Frenchman and an Englishman seems to be this: the one thinks everything right that is French, the other thinks everything wrong that is not English.
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When one can do better than everyone else in the same walk, one does not make any very painful exertions to outdo oneself. The progress of improvement ceases nearly at the point where competition ends.
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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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There is some virtue in almost every vice, except hypocrisy; and even that, while it is a mockery of virtue, is at the same time a compliment to it.
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If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.
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What I mean by living to one's self is living in the world, as in it, not of it.
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Repose is as necessary in conversation as in a picture.
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I have a much greater ambition to be the best racket player than the best prose writer.
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The temple of fame stands upon the grave: the flame that burns upon its altars is kindled from the ashes of great men.
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Features alone do not run in the blood; vices and virtues, genius and folly, are transmitted through the same sure but unseen channel.
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The most fluent talkers or most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers.
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I hate anything that occupies more space than it is worth... I hate to see a parcel of big words without anything in them.
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Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.
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The definition of genius is that it acts unconsciously, and those who have produced immortal works have done so without knowing how or why.
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Pride erects a little kingdom of its own, and acts as sovereign in it.
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Just as much as we see in others we have in ourselves.
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The way to get on in the world is to be neither more nor less wise, neither better nor worse than your neighbours.
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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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Those who have the largest hearts have the soundest understandings; and they are the truest philosophers who can forget themselves.