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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

“Those who aim at faultless regularity will only produce mediocrity, and no one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves.”

William Hazlitt

"Thoughts on Taste", Edinburgh Magazine (July 1819), final paragraph

Perfection

“No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.”

William Hazlitt

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

Deep , Powerful , History

“If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.”

William Hazlitt

No. 302
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

World

“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

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

Death , Time , Horse , Fight

“Reputation runs in a vicious circle, and Merit limps behind it, mortified and abashed at its own insignificance. It has been said that the test of fame or popularity is to consider the number of times your name is repeated by others … So, if you see the same name staring you in the face in great letters at the corner of every street, you involuntarily think the owner of it must be a great man to occupy so large a space in the eye of the town. The appeal is made, in the first instance, to the senses, but it sinks below the surface into the mind. There are various ways of playing one's-self off before the public, and keeping one's name alive. The newspapers, the lamp-posts, the walls of empty houses, the shutters of windows, the blank covers of magazines and reviews, are open to every one.”

William Hazlitt

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

Way , Thinking , Sense , Time

“One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but I like to do it myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone.”

William Hazlitt

"On Going on a Journey"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

World , Nature

“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

"Mind and Motive"
Winterslow: Essays and Characters (1850)

Youth , World , Faith , Dreams

“As is our confidence, so is our capacity.”

William Hazlitt

No. 89
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

Confidence

“Envy among other ingredients has a mixture of the love of justice in it. We are more angry at undeserved than at deserved good-fortune.”

William Hazlitt

No. 19
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

Love , Justice , Envy

“I should on this account like well enough to spend the whole of my life in travelling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home.”

William Hazlitt

"On Going on a Journey"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Life , Travel , Home

“The poetical impression of any object is that uneasy, exquisite sense of beauty or power that cannot be contained within itself; that is impatient of all limit; that (as flame bends to flame) strives to link itself to some other image of kindred beauty or grandeur; to enshrine itself, as it were, in the highest forms of fancy, and to relieve the aching sense of pleasure by expressing it in the boldest manner, and by the most striking examples of the same quality in other instances.”

William Hazlitt

Lectures on the English Poets http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16209/16209.txt (1818), Lecture I, "On Poetry in General"

Pleasure , Beauty , Sense

“He talked on for ever; and you wished him to talk on for ever.”

William Hazlitt

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

“One has no notion of him as making use of a fine pen, but a great mutton-fist; his style stuns readers…He is too much for any single newspaper antagonist; "lays waste" a city orator or Member of Parliament, and bears hard upon the government itself. He is kind of fourth estate in the politics of the country.”

William Hazlitt

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

Country

“Good temper is one of the great preservers of the features.”

William Hazlitt

This is from Hazlitt's "Conversations of James Northcote, Esq., R.A.," New Monthly Magazine (1826-1827), published in book form in 1830; but the words were spoken by Northcote
Misattributed

“Again, there is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have also their altars and their religion.”

William Hazlitt

"On Cant and Hypocrisy"
Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays (1852)

Religion

“There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself.”

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)

Stupidity , Animals , Selfishness

“We grow tired of every thing but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects.”

William Hazlitt

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

“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

"On the Look of a Gentleman"
The Plain Speaker (1826)

Love , Understanding

“The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness, than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings.”

William Hazlitt

"American Literature — Dr. Channing," Edinburgh Review, (October 1829), reprinted in The Collected Works of William Hazlitt (1902-1904)

Pain

“The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with most regret, never did me the smallest favour.”

William Hazlitt

"On the Spirit of Obligations"
The Plain Speaker (1826)

Pleasure , Personality

“Zeal will do more than knowledge.”

William Hazlitt

" On the Difference Between Writing and Speaking http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/DiffWritSpeak.htm"
The Plain Speaker (1826)

Knowledge

“There is (so to speak) "a mighty stream of tendency" to good in the human mind, upon which all objects float and are imperceptibly borne along; and though in the voyage of life we meet with strong rebuffs, with rocks and quicksands, yet there is a "a tide in the affairs of men," a heaving and a restless aspiration of the soul, by means of which, "with sails and tackle torn," the wreck and scattered fragments of our entire being drift into the port and haven of our desires!”

William Hazlitt

"Why Distant Objects Please"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Life , Men , Soul , Strong

“The most sensible people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world, who argue from what they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what things ought to be.”

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)

Men , People , World , Business

“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.”

William Hazlitt

"On Going on a Journey"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Feeling , Thinking , Silence , Heart

“Belief is with them mechanical, voluntary: they believe what they are paid for — they swear to that which turns to account. Do you suppose, that after years spent in this manner, they have any feeling left answering to the difference between truth and falsehood?”

William Hazlitt

"The Modern Gradus ad Parnassum," London Weekly Review (17 May 1828), reprinted in New Writings by William Hazlitt (1925), edited by P. P. Howe

Truth , Feeling

“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

No. 156
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

Sense , Perseverance

“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

"On Knowledge of the World"
Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays (1852)

World , Way

“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

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

Life , Way , Feeling

“Our first of poets was one of our first of men. He was an eminent instance to prove that a poet is not another name for the slave of power and fashion … who merely aspire to make up the pageant and show of the day. There are persons in common life who … can so little bear to be left for any length of time out of the grand carnival and masquerade of pride and folly, that they will gain admittance to it at the expense of their characters … Milton was not one of these. He had lofty contemplative principle, and consciousness of inward power and worth, [not] to be tempted by such idle baits.”

William Hazlitt

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

Life , Men , Fashion , Time

“The last sort I shall mention are verbal critics — mere word-catchers, fellows that pick out a word in a sentence and a sentence in a volume, and tell you it is wrong. The title of Ultra-Crepidarian critics has been given to a variety of this species.”

William Hazlitt

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

“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

" On Cant and Hypocrisy http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/CantHypocrisy.htm", London Weekly Review, (6 December 1828)
Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays (1852)

Parting

“To be remembered after we are dead, is but a poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living.”

William Hazlitt

No. 429
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

Dead

“Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.”

William Hazlitt

"On Wit and Humour"
Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819)

Food

“The great requisite … for the prosperous management of ordinary business is the want of imagination.”

William Hazlitt

"On Thought and Action" http://books.google.com/books?id=9NU3AAAAYAAJ&q=%22The+great+requisite%22+%22for+the+prosperous+management+of+ordinary+business+is+the+want+of+imagination%22&pg=PA241#v=onepage
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Imagination , Business

“I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country.”

William Hazlitt

"On Going on a Journey"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Time , Country

“Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.”

William Hazlitt

No. 101
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

People , Art

“There is a feeling of Eternity in youth which makes us amends for everything. To be young is to be as one of the Immortals.”

William Hazlitt

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

Youth , Feeling

“Violent antipathies are always suspicious, and betray a secret affinity.”

William Hazlitt

"On Vulgarity and Affectation" http://books.google.com/books?id=gykJAAAAQAAJ&q=%22Violent+antipathies+are+always+suspicious+and+betray+a+secret+affinity%22&pg=PA377#v=onepage
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Secret

“The objects that we have known in better days are the main props that sustain the weight of our affections, and give us strength to await our future lot. The future is like a dead wall or a thick mist hiding all objects from our view; the past is alive and stirring with objects, bright or solemn, and of unfading interest.”

William Hazlitt

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

Past , Future , Dead

“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

"A Farewell to Essay-Writing" (March 1828)
Winterslow: Essays and Characters (1850)

Way , Thinking

“Of the two classes of people, I hardly know which is to be regarded with most distaste, the vulgar aping the genteel, or the genteel constantly sneering at and endeavouring to distinguish themselves from the vulgar. … True worth does not exult in the faults and deficiencies of others; as true refinement turns away from grossness and deformity, instead of being tempted to indulge in an unmanly triumph over it. … Real power, real excellence, does not seek for a foil in inferiority; nor fear contamination from coming in contact with that which is coarse and homely.”

William Hazlitt

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

People , Fear , Home

“Scholars, like princes, may learn something by being incognito. Yet we see those who cannot go into a bookseller's shop, or bear to be five minutes in a stage-coach, without letting you know who they are. They carry their reputation about with them as the snail does its shell, and sit under its canopy, like the lady in the lobster. I cannot understand this at all. What is the use of a man's always revolving round his own little circle? He must, one should think, be tired of it himself, as well as tire other people.”

William Hazlitt

"On People With One Idea"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

People , Understanding , Thinking , Learning

“We are all of us more or less the slaves of opinion.”

William Hazlitt

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

“The art of will-making chiefly consists in baffling the importunity of expectation.”

William Hazlitt

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

Art

“Those who can command themselves, command others.”

William Hazlitt

No. 407
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

“The confession of our failings is a thankless office. It savors less of sincerity or modesty than of ostentation. It seems as if we thought our weaknesses as good as other people's virtues.”

William Hazlitt

No. 43
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

People , Sincerity

“General principles are not the less true or important because, from their nature they elude immediate observation; they are like the air, which is not the less necessary because we neither see nor feel it, or like that secret influence which binds the world together and holds the planets in their orbits.”

William Hazlitt

"Edmund Burke"
The Eloquence of the British Senate (1808)

Secret , World , Feeling , Nature

“Some persons make promises for the pleasure of breaking them.”

William Hazlitt

No. 413
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

Pleasure , Personality

“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 book The Spirit of the Age

"William Gifford" http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Spirit_of_the_Age/Mr._Gifford
The Spirit of the Age (1825)

Law , Personality

“If we wish to know the force of human genius, we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning, we may study his commentators.”

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)

Study , Learning , Reading