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William Hazlitt Quotes - Page 25

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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

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
Hope, Expectations, Enjoyment
"Collected Works of William Hazlitt".

Death puts an end to rivalship and competition. The dead can boast no advantage over us, nor can we triumph over them.

William Hazlitt
Competition, Triumph, Advantage
William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.525

Cowardice is not synonymous with prudence. It often happens that the better part of discretion is valor.

William Hazlitt
Cowardice, Valor, Prudence
William Hazlitt, William Ernest Henley (1902). “The Collected Works of William Hazlitt: Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft. Liber amoris. Characteristics”

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
Art, Silence, Quality
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1472, Delphi Classics

Repose is as necessary in conversation as in a picture.

William Hazlitt
Conversation, Repose
William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.483

A man is a hypocrite only when he affects to take a delight in what he does not feel, not because he takes a perverse delight in opposite things.

William Hazlitt
Hypocrite, Men, Opposites
William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.500

To create an unfavorable impression, it is not necessary that certain things should be true, but that they have been said.

William Hazlitt
Gossip, Should, Said
William Hazlitt (1837). “Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims [by W. Hazlitt].”, p.76

We judge of others for the most part by their good opinion of themselves; yet nothing gives such offense or creates so many enemies, as that extreme self-complacency or superciliousness of manner, which appears to set the opinion of every one else at defiance.

William Hazlitt
Self, Giving, Judging
William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.452

The number of objects we see from living in a large city amuses the mind like a perpetual raree-show, without supplying it with any ideas.

William Hazlitt
Cities, Ideas, Numbers
William Hazlitt (1837). “Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims [by W. Hazlitt].”, p.140

There is something captivating in spirit and intrepidity, to which, we often yield as to a resistless power; nor can he reasonably expect, the confidence of others who too apparently distrusts himself.

William Hazlitt
Confidence, Yield, Spirit

Taste is nothing but an enlarged capacity for receiving pleasure from works of imagination.

William Hazlitt
Art, Imagination, Receiving
William Hazlitt (1852). “Men and manners: sketches and essays”, p.199

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
Opportunity, Giving, Faults
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1472, Delphi Classics

The safest kind of praise is to foretell that another will become great in some particular way. It has the greatest show of magnanimity and the least of it in reality.

William Hazlitt
Reality, Greatness, Way
William Hazlitt, James Thornton (1967). “A reply to 'Z.' A letter to William Gifford, esq. Prefatory remarks to Oxberry's New English drama. Liber amoris; or, The new Pygmalion. Characteristics. Preface and critical list of authors from Select British poets”

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