William Hazlitt quotes - page 12

The most fluent talkers or most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers. (William Hazlitt)
We must overact our part in some measure, in order to produce any effect at all. View quote
William Hazlitt
I do not think there is anything deserving the name of society to be found out of London. View quote
William Hazlitt
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. View quote
William Hazlitt
Persons without education certainly do not want either acuteness or strength of mind in what concerns themselves, or in things immediately within their observation but they have no power of abstraction, no general standard of taste, or scale of opinion. They see their objects always near, and never in the horizon. Hence arises that egotism which has been remarked as the characteristic of self-taught men. View quote
William Hazlitt
Refinement creates beauty everywhere. It is the grossness of the spectator that discovers anything like grossness in the object. View quote
William Hazlitt
We trifle with, make sport of, and despise those who are attached to us, and follow those that fly from us. View quote
William Hazlitt
Love at first sight is only realizing an imagination that has always haunted us or meeting with a face, a figure, or cast of expression in perfection that we have seen and admired in a less degree or in less favorable circumstances a hundred times before. View quote
William Hazlitt
It is not the passion of a mind struggling with misfortune, or the hopelessness of its desires, but of a mind preying on itself, and disgusted with, or indifferent to all other things. View quote
William Hazlitt
The youth is better than the old age of friendship. View quote
William Hazlitt
Want of principle is power. Truth and honesty set a limit to our efforts, which impudence and hypocrisy easily overleap. (William Hazlitt)
The most violent friendships soonest wear themselves out. View quote
William Hazlitt
Political truth is a libel - religious truth, blasphemy. View quote
William Hazlitt
The contemplation of truth and beauty is the proper object for which we were created, which calls forth the most intense desires of the soul, and of which it never tires. View quote
William Hazlitt
There is nothing more likely to drive a man mad, than the being unable to get rid of the idea of the distinction between right and wrong, and an obstinate, constitutional preference of the true to the agreeable. View quote
William Hazlitt
The essence of poetry is will and passion. View quote
William Hazlitt
Everyone in a crowd has the power to throw dirt 9 out of 10 have the inclination. View quote
William Hazlitt
The surest hindrance of success is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the judgment of the public. He who is determined not to be satisfied with anything short of perfection will never do anything to please himself or others. View quote
William Hazlitt
Women never reason, and therefore they are (comparatively) seldom wrong. View quote
William Hazlitt
Art must anchor in nature, or it is the sport of every breath of folly. View quote
William Hazlitt
The last pleasure in life is the sense of discharging our duty. (William Hazlitt)
A Whig is properly what is called a Trimmer --that is, a coward to both sides of the question, who dare not be a knave nor an honest man, but is a sort of whiffling, shuffling, cunning, silly, contemptible, unmeaning negation of the two. View quote
William Hazlitt
Our notions with respect to the importance of life, and our attachment to it, depend on a principle which has very little to do with its happiness or its misery. . . . The love of life is, in general, the effect not of our enjoyments, but of our passions. View quote
William Hazlitt
It is well that there is no one without a fault for he would not have a friend in the world. He would seem to belong to a different species. View quote
William Hazlitt
Life is the art of being well deceived. View quote
William Hazlitt