William Hazlitt quotes - page 5

We are all of us, more or less, the slaves of opinion. (William Hazlitt)
The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity of Spencer, remoteness of Milton elevation and of Shakespeare everything. View quote
William Hazlitt
The great requisite for the prosperous management of ordinary business is the want of imagination. View quote
William Hazlitt
Mankind are an incorrigible race. Give them but bugbears and idols --it is all that they ask the distinctions of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, are worse than indifferent to them. View quote
William Hazlitt
So I have loitered my life away, reading books, looking at pictures, going to plays, hearing, thinking, writing on what pleased me best. I have wanted only one thing to make me happy, but wanting that have wanted everything. View quote
William Hazlitt
Good temper is an estate for life. View quote
William Hazlitt
There is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body. View quote
William Hazlitt
Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust; hatred alone is immortal. View quote
William Hazlitt
There are names written in her immortal scroll at which Fame blushes. View quote
William Hazlitt
To be remembered after we are dead, is but poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living. View quote
William Hazlitt
He who comes up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a very low standard of it in mind. (William Hazlitt)
No wise man can have a contempt for the prejudices of others and he should even stand in a certain awe of his own, as if they were aged parents and monitors. They may in the end prove wiser than he. View quote
William Hazlitt
There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiless, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself. View quote
William Hazlitt
The slaves of power mind the cause they have to serve, because their own interest is concerned but the friends of liberty always sacrifice their cause, which is only the cause of humanity, to their own spleen, vanity, and self-opinion. View quote
William Hazlitt
The thing is plain. All that men really understand, is confined to a very small compass to their daily affairs and experience to what they have an opportunity to know, and motives to study or practise. The rest is affectation and imposture. View quote
William Hazlitt
A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. View quote
William Hazlitt
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. View quote
William Hazlitt
A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles. View quote
William Hazlitt
There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an idiot; and an idiot has some advantages over a wise man. View quote
William Hazlitt
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. View quote
William Hazlitt
Wit is, in fact, the eloquence of indifference. (William Hazlitt)
It [will-making] is the latest opportunity we have of exercising the natural perversity of the disposition ... This last act of our lives seldom belies the former tenor of them for stupidity, caprice, and unmeaning spite. All that we seem to think of is to manage matters so (in settling accounts with those who are so unmannerly as to survive us) as to do as little good, and to plague and disappoint as many people, as possible. View quote
William Hazlitt
The origin of all science is in the desire to know causes; and the origin of all false science and imposture is in the desire to accept false causes rather than none; or, which is the same thing, in the unwillingness to acknowledge our own ignorance. View quote
William Hazlitt
One truth discovered is immortal, and entitles its author to be so; for, like a new substance in nature, it cannot be destroyed. View quote
William Hazlitt
Learning is its own exceeding great reward; and at the period of which we speak, it bore other fruits, not unworthy of it. View quote
William Hazlitt