William Hazlitt Quotes
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There are many who talk on from ignorance rather than from knowledge, and who find the former an inexhaustible fund of conversation.
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The dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.
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To great evils we submit, we resent little provocations.
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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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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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A knave thinks himself a fool, all the time he is not making a fool of some other person.
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Pride goes before a fall, they say, And yet we often find, The folks who throw all pride away Most often fall behind.
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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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The pleasure of hating, like a poisonous mineral, eats into the heart of religion, and turns it to ranking spleen and bigotry; it makes patriotism an excuse for carrying fire, pestilence, and famine into other lands: it leaves to virtue nothing but the spirit of censoriousness.
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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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A lively blockhead in company is a public benefit. Silence or dulness by the side of folly looks like wisdom.
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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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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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Nothing precludes sympathy so much as a perfect indifference to it
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Of all virtues, magnanimity is the rarest. There are a hundred persons of merit for one who willingly acknowledges it in another.
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The public is so in awe of its own opinion that it never dares to form any, but catches up the first idle rumour, lest it should be behindhand in its judgment, and echoes it till it is deafened with the sound of its own voice.
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Abuse is an indirect species of homage.
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I am always afraid of a fool. One cannot be sure that he is not a knave as well.
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Those who have the largest hearts have the soundest understandings; and they are the truest philosophers who can forget themselves.
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Language, if it throws a veil over our ideas, adds a softness and refinement to them, like that which the atmosphere gives to naked objects.
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To-day kings, to-marrow beggars, it is only when they are themselves that they are nothing.
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There is nothing more to be esteemed than a manly firmness and decision of character.
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The corpse of friendship is not worth embalming.
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The garb of religion is the best cloak for power.