William Hazlitt was an English writer and critic in the early 19th century. He is best known for his works on literature, art and politics, including his essays on the characters of Shakespeare and his book "The Spirit of the Age". He is considered one of the most important literary critics of the Romantic period. Following is our collection on famous quotes by William Hazlitt on love, life, friendship.
A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles.
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.
Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.
There is no prejudice so strong as that which arises from a fancied exemption from all prejudice.
The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.
I'm not smart, but I like to observe. Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.
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 inspirational quote
William Hazlitt Image Quotes
Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves. — William Hazlitt
Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love. — William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt Short Quotes
Dandyism is a species of genius.
The most learned are often the most narrow minded.
He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others.
Those only deserve a monument who do not need one.
Nothing is more unjust or capricious than public opinion.
Violent antipathies are always suspicious, and betray a secret affinity.
A great mind is one that can forget or look beyond itself.
Reflection makes men cowards.
If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.
William Hazlitt Quotes About Love
Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love. — William Hazlitt
To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind. — William Hazlitt
There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself. We cannot force it any more than love. — William Hazlitt
Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage, how little security have we when we trust our happiness in the hands of others! — William Hazlitt
Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust; hatred alone is immortal. — William Hazlitt
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
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. — William Hazlitt
The incentive to ambition is the love of power. — William Hazlitt
Love and joy are twins or born of each other. — William Hazlitt
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
William Hazlitt Quotes About Life
The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure very much. — William Hazlitt
I would like to spend my whole life traveling, if I could borrow another life to spend at home. — William Hazlitt
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
They are the only honest hypocrites, their life is a voluntary dream, a studied madness. — William Hazlitt
Life is the art of being well deceived. — William Hazlitt
Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted. — William Hazlitt
Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life. — William Hazlitt
Good temper is an estate for life. — William Hazlitt
Our notions with respect to the importance of life, and our attachment to it, depend on a principle which has very little to do with its happiness or its misery. The love of life is, in general, the effect not of our enjoyments, but of our passions. — William Hazlitt
Those who speak ill of the spiritual life, although they come and go by day, are like the smith's bellows: they take breath but are not alive. — William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt Quotes About Friendship
Poverty is the test of civility and the touchstone of friendship. — William Hazlitt
The most violent friendships soonest wear themselves out. — William Hazlitt
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
Old friendships are like meats served up repeatedly, cold, comfortless, and distasteful. The stomach turns against them. — William Hazlitt
Nothing gives such a blow to friendship as the detecting another in an untruth. It strikes at the root of our confidence ever after. — William Hazlitt
The soil of friendship is worn out with constant use. Habit may still attach us to each other, but we feel ourselves fettered by it. Old friends might be compared to old married people without the tie of children. — William Hazlitt
The dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough. — William Hazlitt
True friendship is self-love at second-hand. — William Hazlitt
Natural affection is a prejudice; for though we have cause to love our nearest connections better than others, we have no reason to think them better than others. — William Hazlitt
True friendship is self-love at second hand; where, as in a flattering mirror we may see our virtues magnified and our errors softened, and where we may fancy our opinion of ourselves confirmed by an impartial and faithful witness. — William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt Quotes About Education
Anyone who has passed though 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
Wit is the rarest quality to be met with among people of education, and the most common among the uneducated. — William Hazlitt
Anyone 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
That which anyone has been long learning unwillingly, he unlearns with proportional eagerness and haste. — William Hazlitt
The essence of poetry is will and passion. — William Hazlitt
Without life there can be no action — no objects of pursuit — no restless desires — no tormenting passions. Hence it is that we fondly cling to it — that we dread its termination as the close, not of enjoyment, but of hope. — William Hazlitt
When you find out a man's ruling passion, beware of crossing him in it. — William Hazlitt
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. — William Hazlitt
An accomplished coquette excites the passions of others, in proportion as she feels none herself. — William Hazlitt
The love of letters is the forlorn hope of the man of letters. His ruling passion is the love of fame. — William Hazlitt
It is only necessary to raise a bugbear before the English imagination in order to govern it at will. Whatever they hate or fear, they implicitly believe in, merely from the scope it gives to these passions. — William Hazlitt
The only true retirement is that of the heart; the only true leisure is the repose of the passions. To such persons it makes little difference whether they are young or old; and they die as they have lived, with graceful resignation. — William Hazlitt
A man in love prefers his passion to every other consideration, and is fonder of his mistress than he is of virtue. Should she prove vicious, she makes vice lovely in his eyes. — William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt Quotes About Eloquent
Of all eloquence a nickname is the most concise; of all arguments the most unanswerable. — William Hazlitt
Honesty is one part of eloquence. We persuade others by being in earnest ourselves. — William Hazlitt
Silence is one great art of conversation. He is not a fool who knows when to hold his tongue; and a person may gain credit for sense, eloquence, wit, who merely says nothing to lessen the opinion which others have of these qualities in themselves. — William Hazlitt
Wit is, in fact, the eloquence of indifference. — William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt Quotes About Friends
We are fonder of visiting our friends in health than in sickness. We judge less favorably of their characters when any misfortune happens to them; and a lucky hit, either in business or reputation, improves even their personal appearance in our eyes. — William Hazlitt
When I take up a book I have read before, I know what to expect; the satisfaction is not lessened by being anticipated. I shake hands with, and look our old tried and valued friend in the face,--compare notes and chat the hour away. — William Hazlitt
When we forget old friends, it is a sign we have forgotten ourselves. — William Hazlitt
The slaves of power mind the cause they have to serve, because their own interest is concerned; but the friends of liberty always sacrifice their cause, which is only the cause of humanity, to their own spleen, vanity, and self-opinion. — William Hazlitt
The silence of a friend commonly amounts to treachery. His not daring to say anything in our behalf implies a tacit censure. — William Hazlitt
I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about. — William Hazlitt
It is well that there is no one without a fault; for he would not have a friend in the world. — William Hazlitt
Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them to do. — William Hazlitt
He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies. — William Hazlitt
We do not like our friends the worse because they sometimes give us an opportunity to rail at them heartily. Their faults reconcile us to their virtues. — William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt Quotes About World
You know more of a road by having traveled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world. — William Hazlitt
The ignorance of the world leaves one at the mercy of its malice. — William Hazlitt
If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation. — William Hazlitt
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
The present is an age of talkers, and not of doers; and the reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in the Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, and dote on past achievement. — William Hazlitt
Almost every sect of Christianity is a perversion of its essence, to accommodate it to the prejudices of the world. — William Hazlitt
The world judge of men by their ability in their profession, and we judge of ourselves by the same test: for it is on that on which our success in life depends. — William Hazlitt
The devil was a great loss in the preternatural world. He was always something to fear and to hate; he supplied the antagonist powers of the imagination, and the arch of true religion hardly stands firm without him. — William Hazlitt
Popularity disarms envy in well-disposed minds. Those are ever the most ready to do justice to others who feel that the world has done them justice. When success has not this effect in opening the mind, it is a sign that it has been ill deserved. — William Hazlitt
I have known persons without a friend--never any one without some virtue. The virtues of the former conspired with their vices to make the whole world their enemies. — William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt Quotes About Nature
The Irish are hearty, the Scotch plausible, the French polite, the Germans good-natured, the Italians courtly, the Spaniards reserved and decorous - the English alone seem to exist in taking and giving offense. — William Hazlitt
Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are disagreeable to others. — William Hazlitt
We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts. — William Hazlitt
Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else. — William Hazlitt
Comedy naturally wears itself out -- destroys the very food on which it lives; and by constantly and successfully exposing the follies and weaknesses of mankind to ridicule, in the end leaves itself nothing worth laughing at. — William Hazlitt
Those people who are always improving never become great. Greatness is an eminence, the ascent to which is steep and lofty, and which a man must seize on at once by natural boldness and vigor, and not by patient, wary steps. — William Hazlitt
The perfect joys of heaven do not satisfy the cravings of nature. — William Hazlitt
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. — William Hazlitt
Truth from the mouth of an honest man and severity from a good-natured man have a double effect. — William Hazlitt
To be happy, we must be true to nature, and carry our age along with us. — William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt Famous Quotes And Sayings
Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves. — William Hazlitt
Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love. — William Hazlitt
To be wiser than other men is to be honester than they; and strength of mind is only courage to see and speak the truth. — William Hazlitt
The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy. — William Hazlitt
The most insignificant people are the most apt to sneer at others. They are safe from reprisals. And have no hope of rising in their own self esteem but by lowering their neighbors. — William Hazlitt
To be remembered after we are dead, is but poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living. — William Hazlitt
Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it. — William Hazlitt
Mankind are an incorrigible race. Give them but bugbears and idols -- it is all that they ask; the distinctions of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, are worse than indifferent to them. — William Hazlitt
An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may. — William Hazlitt
The smallest pain in our little finger gives us more concern than the destruction of millions of our fellow beings. — William Hazlitt
Rules and models destroy genius and art. — William Hazlitt
No one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves. — William Hazlitt
As is our confidence, so is our capacity. — William Hazlitt
There cannot be a surer proof of low origin, or of an innate meanness of disposition, than to be always talking and thinking of being genteel. — William Hazlitt
No truly great person ever thought themselves so. — William Hazlitt
We are never so much disposed to quarrel with others as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves. — William Hazlitt
A scholar is like a book written in a dead language. It is not every one that can read in it. — William Hazlitt
The diffusion of taste is not the same thing as the improvement of taste. — William Hazlitt
You will hear more good things on the outside of a stagecoach from London to Oxford than if you were to pass a twelvemonth with the undergraduates, or heads of colleges, of that famous university. — William Hazlitt
There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you. — William Hazlitt
Those who wish to forget painful thoughts do well to absent themselves for a while from, the ties and objects that recall them; but we can be said only to fulfill our destiny in the place that gave us birth. — William Hazlitt
People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because they excel. — William Hazlitt
One is always more vexed at losing a game of any sort by a single hole or ace, than if one has never had a chance of winning it. — William Hazlitt
It is only those who never think at all, or else who have accustomed themselves to blood invariably on abstract ideas, that ever feel ennui. — William Hazlitt
Political truth is libel; religious truth, blasphemy. — William Hazlitt
The seat of knowledge is in the head; of wisdom, in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we do not feel right. — William Hazlitt
Some people break promises for the pleasure of breaking them. — William Hazlitt
When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest. — William Hazlitt
A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could. — William Hazlitt
We grow tired of ourselves, much more of other people. — William Hazlitt
Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity. — William Hazlitt
Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts. — William Hazlitt
Just as much as we see in others we have in ourselves. — William Hazlitt
Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses. — William Hazlitt
Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater. — William Hazlitt
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
He who would see old Hoghton right Must view it by the pale moonlight. — William Hazlitt
Grace in women has more effect than beauty. — William Hazlitt
Malice often takes the garb of truth. — William Hazlitt
We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation. — William Hazlitt
The way to secure success is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it. — William Hazlitt
The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with most regret, never did me the smallest favor. — William Hazlitt
We are all of us, more or less, the slaves of opinion. — William Hazlitt
We are not hypocrites in our sleep. — William Hazlitt
There is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body. — William Hazlitt
Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress. — William Hazlitt
The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard. — William Hazlitt
Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the color in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty and your animal spirits. — William Hazlitt
The way to procure insults is to submit to them. A man meets with no more respect than he exacts. — William Hazlitt
There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an idiot; and an idiot has some advantages over a wise man. — William Hazlitt
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. — William Hazlitt
Zeal will do more than knowledge. — William Hazlitt
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
Habitual liars invent falsehoods not to gain any end or even to deceive their hearers, but to amuse themselves. It is partly practice and partly habit. It requires an effort in them to speak truth. — William Hazlitt
Modesty is the lowest of the virtues, and is a real confession of the deficiency it indicates. He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others. — William Hazlitt
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. — William Hazlitt
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
No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history. — William Hazlitt
A man knows his companion in a long journey and a little inn. — William Hazlitt
Faith is necessary to victory. — William Hazlitt
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
Without the aid of prejudice and custom, I should not be able to find my way across the room. — William Hazlitt
