Authors:

William Hazlitt Quotes - Page 17

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
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.

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
Men, Mind, Speak
William Hazlitt (1852). “Men and manners: sketches and essays”, p.140

Society is a more level surface than we imagine. Wise men or absolute fools are hard to be met with, as there are few giants or dwarfs.

William Hazlitt
Wise, Men, Fool
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1470, Delphi Classics

In what we really understand, we reason but little.

William Hazlitt
Understanding, Littles, Reason
William Hazlitt, Edward Bulwer Lytton Baron Lytton, Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, Charles Lamb (1836). “Literary Remains of the Late William Hazlitt: With Notice of His Life”, p.156

As we advance in life, we acquire a keener sense of the value of time. Nothing else, indeed, seems of any consequence; and we become misers in this respect.

William Hazlitt
Inspirational, Value Of Time, Misers
William Hazlitt (1904). “The Collected Works of William Hazlitt: Fugitive writings”

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

William Hazlitt
Kindness, Wish, Favors
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1476, Delphi Classics

Books are a world in themselves, it is true; but they are not the only world. The world itself is a volume larger than all the libraries in it.

William Hazlitt
Book, Library, World
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1812, Delphi Classics

Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end.

William Hazlitt
Fear Of Death, Ends, Cures
Table Talk "On the Fear of Death" (1822)

The book-worm wraps himself up in his web of verbal generalities, and sees only the glimmering shadows of things reflected from the minds of others.

William Hazlitt
Book, Reading, Mind
William Hazlitt (1845). “Table Talk: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things”, p.46

The last pleasure in life is the sense of discharging our duty.

William Hazlitt
Lasts, Life Is, Pleasure
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.2098, Delphi Classics

There is nothing more to be esteemed than a manly firmness and decision of character.

William Hazlitt
Character, Decision, Firmness
William Hazlitt (1859). “Table talk”

A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death. It not only gives us fortitude to bear pain, but teaches us at every step the precarious tenure on which we hold our present being.

William Hazlitt
Pain, Giving, Bears
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1360, Delphi Classics

A Whig is properly what is called a Trimmer - that is, a coward to both sides of the question, who dare not be a knave nor an honest man, but is a sort of whiffing, shuffling, cunning, silly, contemptible, unmeaning negation of the two.

William Hazlitt
Silly, Men, Two

Men are in numberless instances qualified for certain things, for no other reason than because they are qualified for nothing else.

William Hazlitt
Men, Reason, Certain
William Hazlitt (1845). “Table Talk: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things”, p.224

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
Thinking, Vanity, Differences
William Hazlitt (1837). “Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims [by W. Hazlitt].”, p.119

Believe all the good you can of everyone. Do not measure others by yourself. If they have advantages which you have not, let your liberality keep pace with their good fortune. Envy no one, and you need envy no one.

William Hazlitt
Believe, Envy, Needs

If our hours were all serene, we might probably take almost as little note of them as the dial does of those that are clouded.

William Hazlitt
Peace, Doe, Littles
William Hazlitt (1839). “Sketches and Essays”, p.69

A full-dressed ecclesiastic is a sort of go-cart of divinity; an ethical automaton. A clerical prig is, in general, a very dangerous as well as contemptible character. The utmost that those who thus habitually confound their opinions and sentiments with the outside coverings of their bodies can aspire to, is a negative and neutral character, like wax-work figures, where the dress is done as much to the life as the man, and where both are respectable pieces of pasteboard, or harmless compositions of fleecy hosiery.

William Hazlitt
Life, Character, Men
William Hazlitt (1819). “Political essays, with sketches of public characters”, p.289

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

William Hazlitt
Moon, Views, Moonlight

One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey; 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
Journey, Doors, World
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1206, Delphi Classics

Genius is native to the soil where it grows — is fed by the air, and warmed by the sun — and is not a hot - house plant or an exotic.

William Hazlitt
Air, Genius, Exotic
"The Complete Works of William Hazlitt".

Gallantry to women - the sure road to their favor - is nothing but the appearance of extreme devotion to all their wants and wishes, a delight in their satisfaction, and a confidence in yourself as being able to contribute toward it

William Hazlitt
Confidence, Courage, Women
William Hazlitt (1852). “Men and manners: sketches and essays”, p.124

Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy. Action is no less necessary than thought to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame.

William Hazlitt
Happiness, Action, Indolence
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1029, Delphi Classics

I am then never less alone than when alone

William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1206, Delphi Classics

Shall I faint, now that I have poured out the spirit of my mind to the world, and treated many subjects with truth, with freedom, with power, because I have been followed with one cry of abuse ever since for not being a Government tool?

William Hazlitt
Government, Abuse, Mind
William Hazlitt (1926). “Essays”

A knave thinks himself a fool, all the time he is not making a fool of some other person.

William Hazlitt
Thinking, Knavery, Knaves
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1498, Delphi Classics

You May Also Like: