William Hazlitt Quotes
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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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Learning is its own exceeding great reward.
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Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.
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The mind revolts against certain opinions, as the stomach rejects certain foods.
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The wretched are in this respect fortunate, that they have the strongest yearning after happiness; and to desire is in some sense to enjoy.
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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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Those only deserve a monument who do not need one; that is, who have raised themselves a monument in the minds and memories of men.
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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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Principle is a passion for truth.
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The Princess Borghese, Bonaparte's sister, who was no saint, sat to Canova as a reclining Venus, and being asked if she did not feel a little uncomfortable, replied, "No. There was a fire in the room."
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If we wish to know the force of human genius, we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning, we may study his commentators.
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Violent antipathies are always suspicious, and betray a secret affinity.
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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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Conceit is vanity driven from all other shifts, and forced to appeal to itself for admiration.
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We must be doing something to be happy.
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Those who are fond of setting things to rights, have no great objection to seeing them wrong.
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Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets.
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In some situations, if you say nothing, you are called dull; if you talk, you are thought impertinent and arrogant. It is hard to know what to do in this case. The question seems to be, whether your vanity or your prudence predominates.
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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 uniformly applaud what is right and condemn what is wrong, when it costs us nothing but the sentiment.
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The incentive to ambition is the love of power.
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Repose is as necessary in conversation as in a picture.
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We do not die wholly at our deaths: we have mouldered away gradually long before. Faculty after faculty, interest after interest, attachment after attachment disappear: we are torn from ourselves while living.
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The vices are never so well employed as in combating one another.