William Hazlitt Quotes - Page 2

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.

Good-nature, or what is often considered as such, is the most selfish of all the virtues: it is nine times out of ten mere indolence of disposition.

Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought.

Learning is the knowledge of that which none but the learned know.

We had as lief not be as not be ourselves.

A great chessplayer is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it.

Silence is one great art of conversation.

Never so sure our rapture to createAs when it touch'd the brink of all we hate.

The same reason makes a man a religious enthusiast that makes a man an enthusiast in any other way ... an uncomfortable mind in an uncomfortable body.

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

If a person has no delicacy he has you in his power.

We are not hypocrites in our sleep.

Calumny requires no proof. The throwing out of malicious imputations against any character leaves a stain which no after-refutation can wipe out. To create an unfavourable impression it is not necessary that certain things should be true but that they have been said.

We must be doing something to be happy.

Wit is the salt of conversation not the food.

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps for he is the only animal that is struck by the difference between what things are and what they might have been.

Man is a make-believe animal - he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.

We occasionally see something on the stage that reminds us a

Anyone is to be pitied who has just sense enough to perceive his deficiencies.

Let a man's talents or virtues be what they may he will only feel satisfaction as he is satisfied in himself.

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.

Rome has been called the "Sacred City": - might not our Oxford be called so too? There is an air about it, resonant of joy and hope: it speaks with a thousand tongues to the heart: it waves its mighty shadow over the imagination: it stands in lowly sublimity, on the "hill of ages"; and points with prophetic fingers to the sky: it greets the eager gaze from afar, "with glistering spires and pinnacles adorned," that shine with an internal light as with the lustre of setting suns; and a dream and a glory hover round its head, as the spirits of former times, a throng of intellectual shapes, are seen retreating or advancing to the eye of memory: its streets are paved with the names of learning that can never wear out: its green quadrangles breathe the silence of thought.

The world loves to be amused by hollow professions, to be deceived by flattering appearances, to live in a state of hallucination; and can forgive everything but the plain, downright, simple, honest truth.

We often choose a friend as we do a mistress for no particular excellence in themselves but merely from some circumstance that flatters our self-love.

The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.

The same reason makes a man a religious enthusiast that makes a man an enthusiast in any other way: an uncomfortable mind in an uncomfortable body.

The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.

The difference between the vanity of a Frenchman and an Englishman seems to be this: The one thinks everything right that is French the other thinks everything wrong that is not English.

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 only study his commentators. ["On the Ignorance of the Learned"]

Love turns, with little indulgence, to indifference or disgust: hatred alone is immortal.

Prejudice is the child of ignorance.

The love of liberty is the love of others the love of power is the love of ourselves.

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.

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.

To write a genuine familiar or truly English style, is to write as any one 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.

Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets. We attempt nothing great but from a sense of the difficulties we have to encounter we persevere in nothing great but from a pride in overcoming them.

Indolence is a delightful but distressing state. We must be doing something to be happy.