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William Hazlitt
117 quotes
“Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) first seen 1826 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the Conversations of Lords," New Monthly Magazine (April 1826)
“Horus non numero nisi serenas—"I count only the hours that are serene"—is the motto of a sundial near Venice. There is a softness and a harmony in the words and in the thought unparalleled.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) first seen 1827 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On a Sun-Dial" (New Monthly Magazine, October 1827)
“Gallantry to women (the sure road to their favor) is nothing but the appearance of extreme devotion to all their wants and wishes, a delight in their satisfaction, and a confidence in yourself as being able to contribute toward it.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) first seen 1827 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Disagreeable People" (August 1827)
“But there is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Indeed some degree of affectation is as necessary to the mind as dress is to the body; we must overact our part in some measure, in order to produce any effect at all.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) first seen 1828 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Cant and Hypocrisy", London Weekly Review, (6 December 1828)
“We all wear some disguise — make some professions — use some artifice to set ourselves off as being better than we are; and yet it is not denied that we have some good intentions and praiseworthy qualities at bottom, though we may endeavour to keep some others that we think less to our credit as much as possible in the background…”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be as constantly wound up.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Again, there is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have also their altars and their religion.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Prejudice is the child of ignorance…”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Defoe says, that there were a hundred thousand stout country-fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Without the aid of prejudice and custom, I should not be able to find my way across the room; nor know how to conduct myself in any circumstances, nor what to feel in any relation of life.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But fashion is the abortive issue of vain ostentation and exclusive egotism: it is haughty, trifling, affected, servile, despotic, mean and ambitious, precise and fantastical, all in a breath — tied to no rule, and bound to conform to every whim of the minute.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The way to get on in the world is to be neither more nor less wise, neither better nor worse than your neighbours.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a natural tendency in sects to narrow the mind. The extreme stress laid upon differences of minor importance, to the neglect of more general truths and broader views of things, gives an inverted bias to the understanding; and this bias is continually increased by the eagerness of controversy, and captious hostility to the prevailing system. A party-feeling of this kind once formed will insensibly communicate itself to other topics; and will be too apt to lead its votaries to a contempt for the opinions of others, a jealousy of every difference of sentiment, and a disposition to arrogate all sound principle as well as understanding to themselves, and those who think with them. We can readily conceive how such persons, from fixing too high a value on the practical pledge which they have given of the independence and sincerity of their opinions, come at last to entertain a suspicion of every one else as acting under the shackles of prejudice or the mask of hypocrisy. All those who have not given in their unqualified protest against received doctrines and established authority, are supposed to labour under an acknowledged incapacity to form a rational determination on any subject whatever. Any argument, not having the presumption of singularity in its favour, is immediately set aside as nugatory. There is, however, no prejudice so strong as that which arises from a fancied exemption from all prejudice. For this last implies not only the practical conviction that it is right, but the theoretical assumption that it cannot be wrong. From considering all objections as in this manner "null and void,” the mind becomes so thoroughly satisfied with its own conclusions, as to render any farther examination of them superfluous, and confounds its exclusive pretensions to reason with the absolute possession of it.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am no politician, and still less can I be said to be a party-man : I have a hatred of tyranny, and a contempt for its tools; and this feeling I have expressed as often and as strongly as I could. I cannot sit quietly down under the claims of barefaced power, and have tried to expose the little arts of sophistry by which they are defended. I have no mind to have my person made a property of, nor my understanding made a dupe of. I deny that liberty and slavery are convertible terms, that right and wrong, truth and falsehood, plenty and famine, the comforts or wretchedness of a people, are matters of perfect indifference. That is all I know of the matter; but on these points I am likely to remain incorrigible, in spite of any arguments that I have seen used to the contrary. It needs no sagacity to discover that two and two make four; but to persist in maintaining this obvious position, if all the fashion, authority, hypocrisy, and venality of mankind were arrayed against it, would require a considerable effort of personal courage, and would soon leave a man in a very formidable minority.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) said by 1830 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source