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William Hazlitt Quotes
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William Hazlitt was an English essayist, drama and literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell. He is also acknowledged as the finest art critic of his age. Despite his high standing among historians of literature and art, his work is currently little read and mostly out of print.During his lifetime he befriended many people who are now part of the 19th-century literary canon, including Charles and Mary Lamb, Stendhal, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and John Keats. Wikipedia  

✵ 10. April 1778 – 18. September 1830   •   Other names 威廉·赫茲利特
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William Hazlitt: 186   quotes 2   likes

William Hazlitt Quotes

“For my own part, as I once said, I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about.”

William Hazlitt

" On the Pleasure of Hating http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/Hating.htm" (c. 1826)
The Plain Speaker (1826)

Parting

“When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.”

William Hazlitt

"On The Spirit of Controversy," The Atlas (30 January 1830), reprinted in The Collected Works of William Hazlitt (1902-1904)

“They [universities] may be said to resemble antiquated coquettes of the last age, who think everything ridiculous and intolerable but what was in fashion when they were young, and yet are standing proofs of the progress of taste and the vanity of human pretensions. Our universities are, in a great measure, become cisterns to hold, not conduits to disperse knowledge. … they can only be of service as a check-weight on the too hasty and rapid career of innovation. … The unavoidable aim of all corporate bodies of learning is not to grow wise, or teach others wisdom, but to prevent any one else from being or seeming wiser than themselves.”

William Hazlitt

"On Corporate Bodies"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Wisdom , Age , Fashion , Knowledge

“The true barbarian is he who thinks every thing barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices.”

William Hazlitt

No. 333
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

Thinking

“The temple of fame stands upon the grave: the flame that burns upon its altars is kindled from the ashes of dead men.”

William Hazlitt

Lectures on the English Poets http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16209/16209.txt (1818), Lecture VIII, "On the Living Poets"

Men , Dead

“A scholar is like a book written in a dead language — it is not every one that can read in it.”

William Hazlitt

"Common Places," No. 13, The Literary Examiner (September - December 1823)

Books , Reading , Dead

“Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.”

William Hazlitt

"Whether Genius is Conscious of its Powers?"
The Plain Speaker (1826)

“It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.”

William Hazlitt

"On Court-Influence" (January 3/January 10, 1818)
Political Essays (1819)

“Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them to do.”

William Hazlitt

No. 87
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

“The most learned are often the most narrow-minded men.”

William Hazlitt

No. 330
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

Men , Learning

“Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.”

William Hazlitt

"On the Knowledge of Character"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

“A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one — they shew one another off to the best advantage.”

William Hazlitt

No. 376
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

“We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.”

William Hazlitt

"On Prejudice"
Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays (1852)

Thinking

“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

" On the Spirit of Obligations http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/SpiritObligations.htm" (1824)
The Plain Speaker (1826)

Friendship

“When a man is dead, they put money in his coffin, erect monuments to his memory, and celebrate the anniversary of his birthday in set speeches. Would they take any notice of him if he were living? No!”

William Hazlitt

"On Living to One's-Self"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Money , Birthday , Memory , Dead

“To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it…”

William Hazlitt

"On the Difference Between Writing and Speaking"
The Plain Speaker (1826)

“We are not hypocrites in our sleep.”

William Hazlitt

"On Dreams"
The Plain Speaker (1826)

Sleep

“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

" On the Qualifications Necessary for Success http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/Success.htm"
The Plain Speaker (1826)

Way , Success

“It is not easy to write a familiar style. Many people mistake a familiar for a vulgar style, and suppose that to write without affectation is to write at random. On the contrary, there is nothing that requires more precision, and, if I may so say, purity of expression, than the style I am speaking of. It utterly rejects not only all unmeaning pomp, but all low, cant phrases, and loose, unconnected, slipshod allusions. It is not to take the first word that offers, but the best word in common use; it is not to throw words together in any combinations we please, but to follow and avail ourselves of the true idiom of the language. To write a genuine familiar or truly English style, is to write as anyone would speak in common conversation who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes… It is easy to affect a pompous style, to use a word twice as big as the thing you want to express: it is not so easy to pitch upon the very word that exactly fits it, out of eight or ten words equally common, equally intelligible, with nearly equal pretensions, it is a matter of some nicety and discrimination to pick out the very one the preferableness of which is scarcely perceptible, but decisive.”

William Hazlitt

"On Familiar Style" (1821)
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

People , Intelligence , Decision

“It is well that there is no one without a fault; for he would not have a friend in the world.”

William Hazlitt

No. 66
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

World

“The way to procure insults is to submit to them. A man meets with no more respect than he exacts.”

William Hazlitt

No. 402
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

Way

“It has been the resolution of mankind in all ages of the world. No people, no age, ever threw away the fruits of past wisdom, or the enjoyment of present blessings, for visionary schemes of ideal perfection. It is the knowledge of the past, the actual infliction of the present, that has produced all changes, all innovations, and all improvements — not (as is pretended) the chimerical anticipation of possible advantages, but the intolerable pressure of long-established, notorious, aggravated, and growing abuses.”

William Hazlitt

"On Paradox and Common-Place"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Wisdom , People , Age , World

“You know more of a road by having travelled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.”

William Hazlitt

"On The Conduct of Life" (1822)

Family , World , Travel

“He changes his opinions as he does his friends, and much on the same account. He has no comfort in fixed principles; as soon as anything is settled in his own mind, he quarrels with it. He has no satisfaction but the chase after truth, runs a question down, worries and kills it, then quits it like a vermin, and starts some new game, to lead him a new dance, and give him a fresh breathing through bog and brake, with the rabble yelping at his heels and the leaders perpetually at fault.”

William Hazlitt

"On the Character of Cobbett"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Truth , Game , Question , Change

“There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain for our friends. It is little better than a piece of quackery. The truth is, we think of them as we please — that is as they please or displease us.”

William Hazlitt

No. 60
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

Truth , Thinking

“The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity; of Spenser, remoteness; of Milton, elevation; of Shakespeare, every thing.”

William Hazlitt

Lectures on the English Poets http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16209/16209.txt (1818), Lecture III, "On Shakespeare and Milton"

“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

"On Dreams"
The Plain Speaker (1826)

Dreams , Forgetting

“Any one who has passed through the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.”

William Hazlitt

"On the Ignorance of the Learned"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Education , Fools

“Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.”

William Hazlitt

"On Application to Study"
The Plain Speaker (1826)

“Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy.”

William Hazlitt

"On the Pleasure of Painting"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Happiness

“If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.”

William Hazlitt

"On Great and Little Things"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Faith , Faith , Thinking , Victory

“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

No. 389
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

Drink , Future , Dead

“Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense; a substitute for true knowledge.”

William Hazlitt

"On the Ignorance of the Learned"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Knowledge , Sense , Learning

“He who would see old Hoghton right
Must view it by the pale moonlight.”

William Hazlitt

William Carew Hazlitt, English Proverbs and Provincial Phrases, (London, 1882) http://books.google.com/books?vid=0BwDL0yjf1gG1Sn05IQSrM4&id=mmkKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA205&lpg=PA205&dq=%22He+who+would+see+old+Hoghton+right%22#PPA205,M1
Misattributed

“An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.”

William Hazlitt

No. 387
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

Truth

“We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.”

William Hazlitt

"Thoughts on Taste," Edinburgh Magazine, (October 1818), reprinted in The Collected Works of William Hazlitt (1902-1904)

Understanding , Nature , Heart

“Grace has been defined the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.”

William Hazlitt book The Round Table

"On Manner"
The Round Table (1815-1817)

Soul

“The Tory is one who is governed by sense and habit alone. He considers not what is possible, but what is real; he gives might the preference over right. He cries long life to the conqueror, and is ever strong upon the stronger side — the side of corruption and prerogative.”

William Hazlitt

" Preface.htm http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/Political/"
Political Essays (1819)

Life , Sense , Strong

“One shining quality lends a lustre to another, or hides some glaring defect.”

William Hazlitt

No. 162
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

“His hypothesis goes to this — to make the common run of his readers fancy they can do all that can be done by genius, and to make the man of genius believe he can only do what is to be done by mechanical rules and systematic industry. This is not a very feasible scheme; nor is Sir Joshua sufficiently clear and explicit in his reasoning in support of it.”

William Hazlitt

"On Certain Inconsistencies in Sir Joshua Reynolds' Discourses"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Support

“Thought depends on the habitual exercise of the speculative faculties; action, on the determination of the will. The one assigns reasons for things, the other puts causes into act. … Such is the effeminacy of the speculative and philosophical temperament, compared with the promptness and vigour of the practical! … Reasoners in general are undecided, wavering, and sceptical, or yield at last to the weakest motive as most congenial to their feeble habit of soul.”

William Hazlitt

"On Thought and Action"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Exercises , Soul , Motivation , Dependency

“A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man.”

William Hazlitt

"On Nicknames"
Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays (1852)

“I hate to be near the sea, and to hear it roaring and raging like a wild beast in its den. It puts me in mind of the everlasting efforts of the human mind, struggling to be free, and ending just where it began.”

William Hazlitt

"Common Places," No. 60, The Literary Examiner (September - December 1823)

Hate , Effort , Rage , Sea

“Well, I've had a happy life.”

William Hazlitt

Last words (18 September 1830), quoted by his grandson, William Carew Hazlitt, in Memoirs of William Hazlitt (1867) vol. II, p. 238

Life , Happiness

“What I mean by living to one's-self is living in the world, as in it, not of it: it is as if no one know there was such a person, and you wished no one to know it: it is to be a silent spectator of the mighty scene of things, not an object of attention or curiosity in it; to take a thoughtful, anxious interest in what is passing in the world, but not to feel the slightest inclination to make or meddle with it.”

William Hazlitt

"On Living to One's-Self"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

World , Feeling , Personality

“Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone — but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcass of friendship: it is not worth embalming.”

William Hazlitt

" On The Conduct of Life" http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/ConductLife.htm (1822), reprinted in The Collected Works of William Hazlitt (1902-1904)

Friendship , For Friend , For Bestfriend , Friendship

“First impressions are often the truest, as we find (not unfrequently) to our cost when we have been wheedled out of them by plausible professions or actions. A man's look is the work of years, it is stamped on his countenance by the events of his whole life, nay, more, by the hand of nature, and it is not to be got rid of easily.”

William Hazlitt

"On the Knowledge of Character"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Life , Nature

“In art, in taste, in life, in speech, you decide from feeling, and not from reason … If we were obliged to enter into a theoretical deliberation on every occasion before we act, life would be at a stand, and Art would be impracticable.”

William Hazlitt

"On Genius and Common Sense"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Life , Art , Feeling

“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

"On Fashion"
Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays (1852)

Fashion

“Danger is a good teacher, and makes apt scholars. So are disgrace, defeat, exposure to immediate scorn and laughter. There is no opportunity in such cases for self-delusion, no idling time away, no being off your guard (or you must take the consequences) — neither is there any room for humour or caprice or prejudice.”

William Hazlitt

"The Indian Jugglers"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Laughter , Teachers , Time