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William Hazlitt
117 quotes
“Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The public have neither shame or gratitude.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them to do.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As is our confidence, so is our capacity.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The truly proud man knows neither superiors nor inferiors. The first he does not admit of: the last he does not concern himself about.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Unlimited power is helpless, as arbitrary power is capricious. Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets. We can attempt nothing great, but from a sense of the difficulties we have to encounter: we can persevere in nothing great, but from a pride in overcoming them.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One shining quality lends a lustre to another, or hides some glaring defect.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To a superior race of beings the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem equally ridiculous.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The only vice which cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The most learned are often the most narrow-minded men.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The true barbarian is he who thinks every thing barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one — they shew one another off to the best advantage.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity, who drink of that flood of glory as of a river, and refresh our wings in it for future flight.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The way to procure insults is to submit to them. A man meets with no more respect than he exacts.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those who can command themselves, command others.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some persons make promises for the pleasure of breaking them.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labour in it, but they labour in it because they excel.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be remembered after we are dead, is but a poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This Journal, then, is a depository for every species of political sophistry and personal calumny. There is no abuse or corruption that does not there find a jesuitical palliation or a bare-faced vindication. There we meet the slime of hypocrisy, the varnish of courts, the cant of pedantry, the cobwebs of the law, the iron hand of power. Its object is as mischievous as the means by which it is pursued are odious.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One truth discovered is immortal, and entitles its author to be so; for, like a new substance in nature, it cannot be destroyed.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) first seen 1825 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: William Hazlitt, The Spirit of the Age (1825)
Also quoted by: Dag Hammarskjöld (misattributed)
“The player envies only the player, the poet envies only the poet.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For my own part, as I once said, I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) first seen 1826 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the Pleasure of Hating" (c. 1826)
“If mankind had wished for what is right, they might have had it long ago.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We grow tired of every thing but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No really great man ever thought himself so.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He who comes up to his own idea of greatness, must always have had a very low standard of it in his mind.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Zeal will do more than knowledge.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it…”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Few things tend more to alienate friendship than a want of punctuality in our engagements. I have known the breach of a promise to dine or sup to break up more than one intimacy.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) first seen 1824 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the Spirit of Obligations" (1824)
“The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with most regret, never did me the smallest favour.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Good temper is an estate for life…”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) first seen 1821 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Personal Character" (1821)
“So have I 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.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) first seen 1822 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: My First Acquaintance with Poets" (1822)
“Learning is its own exceeding great reward; and at the period of which we speak, it bore other fruits, not unworthy of it.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) first seen 1825 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Old English Writers and Speakers" (1825)
“The way to secure success, is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it; the surest hindrance to it is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the discernment of the public.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are not hypocrites in our sleep.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We often forget our dreams so speedily: if we cannot catch them as they are passing out at the door, we never set eyes on them again.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A gentleman is one who understands and shows every mark of deference to the claims of self-love in others, and exacts it in return from them.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Happy are they who live in the dream of their own existence, and see all things in the light of their own minds; who walk by faith and hope; to whom the guiding star of their youth still shines from afar, and into whom the spirit of the world has not entered! They have not been "hurt by the archers", nor has the iron entered their souls. The world has no hand on them.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) first seen 1828 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Farewell to Essay-Writing" (March 1828)
“If I have not read a book before, it is, to all intents and purposes, new to me, whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) first seen 1825 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Reading New Books" (1825)