Authors:

William Hazlitt Quotes - Page 13

All Quotes Abuse Acceptance Achievement Acting Affection Age Ambition Anger Art Belief Business Character Children Choices Common Sense Community Competition Composition Confidence Country Critics Death Deception Desire Devil Dignity Diversity Dying Earth Education Effort Envy Evil Excellence Exercise Failing Fame Fashion Fear Of Death Feelings Freedom Friends Friendship Funny Genius Giving Grace Gratitude Greatness Growth Happiness Hate Hatred Heart Honesty Hope Humanity Hurt Hypocrisy Ignorance Imagination Inspirational Intelligence Journey Joy Judging Justice Knowledge Language Laughter Leadership Learning Liberty Life Love Lying Modesty Money Monument Motivational Nature Opportunity Pain Painting Passion Peace Perfection Personality Philosophy Pleasure Poverty Power Prejudice Pride Prudence Quality Reading Reflection Regret Reputation Respect Ridicule Running Science Shame Silence Sincerity Society Soul Sports Struggle Stupidity Style Success Talent Teaching Time Travel Truth Understanding Virtue Vocation Water Weakness Wealth Wit Writing Youth
A great chessplayer is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it.

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

William Hazlitt
Men, World, Great Men
Table Talk "The Indian Jugglers" (1822)

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
Failure, Winning, Games
William Hazlitt (1822). “Table-talk Or Original Essays. - London, Colburn 1822”, p.149

Asleep, nobody is a hypocrite

William Hazlitt
Hypocrite, Hypocrisy

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
Friendship, Thinking, Connections
William Hazlitt (1852). “Men and manners: sketches and essays”, p.102

The secret of the difficulties of those people who make a great deal of money, and yet are always in want of it, is this-they throw it away as soon as they get it on the first whim or extravagance that strikes them, and have nothing left to meet ordinary expenses or discharge old debts.

William Hazlitt
Money, People, Secret
William Hazlitt (1837). “Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims [by W. Hazlitt].”, p.132

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
Laughing, Weakness, Comedy
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.180, Delphi Classics

A King (as such) is not a great man. He has great power, but it is not his own.

William Hazlitt
Kings, Men, Dignity
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1105, Delphi Classics

...greatness sympathises with greatness, and littleness shrinks into itself.

William Hazlitt
Greatness, Dignity, Shrinks
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1107, Delphi Classics

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.

William Hazlitt
Religious, Men, Mind
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.232, Delphi Classics

I maintain that there is no common language or medium of understanding between people of education and without it - between those who judge of things from books or from their senses. Ignorance has so far the advantage over learning; for it can make an appeal to you from what you know; but you cannot re-act upon it through that which it is a perfect stranger to. Ignorance is, therefore, power.

William Hazlitt
Book, Ignorance, People
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.2452, Delphi Classics

The corpse of friendship is not worth embalming.

William Hazlitt
Friendship, Embalming, Corpses

We can scarcely hate anyone that we know.

William Hazlitt
Hate, Community, Hatred
'Table Talk' vol. 2 (1822) 'On Criticism'

No act terminating in itself constitutes greatness.

William Hazlitt
Greatness, Dignity
Table Talk "The Indian Jugglers" (1822)

A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It is a bugbear to the imagination, and, though we do not believe in it, it still haunts our apprehensions.

William Hazlitt
Believe, Men, Imagination
William Hazlitt (1839). “Sketches and Essays by W. H. Now first collected [and edited] by his son”, p.222

The chain of habit coils itself around the heart like a serpent, to gnaw and stifle it.

William Hazlitt
Heart, Habit, Chains

We are not satisfied to be right, unless we can prove others to be quite wrong.

William Hazlitt
Satisfied, Prove
William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.379

What is popular is not necessarily vulgar; and that which we try to rescue from fatal obscurity had in general much better remain where it is.

William Hazlitt
Fashion, Clothes, Trying
William Hazlitt (1839). “Sketches and Essays by W. H. Now first collected [and edited] by his son”, p.244

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
Quality, Use, Good Intentions
William Hazlitt (1839). “Sketches and Essays”, p.29

The assumption of merit is easier, less embarrassing, and more effectual than the actual attainment of it.

William Hazlitt
Genius, Merit, Assumption

We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects.

William Hazlitt
Tired, Ridicule, Grows
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1921, Delphi Classics

It is better to be able neither to read nor write than to be able to do nothing else.

William Hazlitt
Education, Writing, Able
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1091, Delphi Classics

A taste for liberal art is necessary to complete the character of a gentleman, Science alone is hard and mechanical. It exercises the understanding upon things out of ourselves, while it leaves the affections unemployed, or engrossed with our own immediate, narrow interests.

William Hazlitt
Art, Character, Exercise
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.393, Delphi Classics

In public speaking, we must appeal either to the prejudices of others, or to the love of truth and justice. If we think merely of displaying our own ability, we shall ruin every cause we undertake.

William Hazlitt
Thinking, Justice, Prejudice
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1484, Delphi Classics

Religion either makes men wise and virtuous, or it makes them set up false pretenses to both.

William Hazlitt
Wise, Men, Hypocrisy
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.307, Delphi Classics

The love of fame is too high and delicate a feeling in the mind to be mixed up with realities, it is a solitary abstraction. * * * A name "fast anchored in the deep abyss of time" is like a star twinkling in the firmament, cold, silent, distant, but eternal and sublime; and our transmitting one to posterity is as if we should contemplate our translation to the skies.

William Hazlitt
Stars, Reality, Sky

You May Also Like: