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William Hazlitt Quotes - Page 9

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We have more faith in a well-written romance while we are reading it than in common history. The vividness of the representations in the one case more than counterbalances the mere knowledge of the truth of facts in the

We have more faith in a well-written romance while we are reading it than in common history. The vividness of the representations in the one case more than counterbalances the mere knowledge of the truth of facts in the other.

William Hazlitt
Reading, Romance, Facts
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1501, Delphi Classics

When the imagination is continually led to the brink of vice by a system of terror and denunciations, people fling themselves over the precipice from the mere dread of falling.

William Hazlitt
Fall, People, Imagination
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1484, Delphi Classics

The vain man makes a merit of misfortune, and triumphs in his disgrace.

William Hazlitt
Men, Vanity, Triumph
William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.473

We would willingly, and without remorse, sacrifice not only the present moment, but all the interval (no matter how long) that separates us from any favorite object.

William Hazlitt
Sacrifice, Long, Matter
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.171, Delphi Classics

Dr. Johnson was a lazy learned man who liked to think and talk better than to read or write; who, however, wrote much and well, but too often by rote.

William Hazlitt
Writing, Men, Thinking
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.694, Delphi Classics

It might be argued, that to be a knave is the gift of fortune, but to play the fool to advantage it is necessary to be a learned man.

William Hazlitt
Men, Play, Might
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1317, Delphi Classics

It is essential to the triumph of reform that it should never succeed.

William Hazlitt
Triumph, Essentials, Reform
William Hazlitt (1904). “The Collected Works of William Hazlitt: Fugitive writings”

Wonder at the first sight of works of art may be the effect of ignorance and novelty; but real admiration and permanent delight in them are the growth of taste and knowledge.

William Hazlitt
Art, Real, Ignorance
William Hazlitt (1821). “Table-talk: Or Original Essays”, p.37

The objects that we have known in better days are the main props that sustain the weight of our affections, and give us strength to await our future lot.

William Hazlitt
Giving, Weight, Affection
William Hazlitt (1857). “Table-talk: Original Essays on Men and Manners”, p.7

Men of gravity are intellectual stammerers, whose thoughts move slowly.

William Hazlitt
Moving, Men, Intellectual

The wretched are in this respect fortunate, that they have the strongest yearning after happiness; and to desire is in some sense to enjoy.

William Hazlitt
Happiness, Joy, Desire

Those who are fond of setting things to rights, have no great objection to seeing them wrong.

William Hazlitt
Rights, Reform, Settings
William Hazlitt (1837). “Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims [by W. Hazlitt].”, p.148

Pure good soon grows insipid, wants variety and spirit. Pain is a bittersweet, which never surfeits. Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust. Hatred alone is immortal.

William Hazlitt
Pain, Hate, Hatred
William Hazlitt (1826). “The plain speaker: opinions on books, men, and things [by W. Hazlitt].”, p.309

I am proud up to the point of equality; everything above or below that appears to me arrant impertinence or abject meanness.

William Hazlitt
Class, Proud, Meanness
William Hazlitt, James Thornton (1967). “Miscellaneous writings”

This is the test and triumph of originality, not to show us what has never been, and what we may therefore very easily never have dreamt of, but to point out to us what is before our eyes and under our feet, though we have had no suspicion of its existence, for want of sufficient strength of intuition, of determined grasp of mind to seize and retain it.

William Hazlitt
Eye, Feet, Intuition
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1064, Delphi Classics

Death cancels everything but truth; and strips a man of everything but genius and virtue. It is a sort of natural canonization.

William Hazlitt
Men, Genius, Virtue
'The Spirit of the Age' (1825) 'Lord Byron'

I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at once what is to be done in given circumstances and does it. He does not beat about the bush for difficulties or excuses, but goes the shortest and most effectual way to work to attain his own ends, or to accomplish a useful object.

William Hazlitt
Mind, Doe, Done
William Hazlitt (1859). “Table talk”

You shall yourself be judge. Reason, with most people, means their own opinion.

William Hazlitt
Mean, People, Judging
William Hazlitt (1870). “The Plain Speaker: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things”, p.262

We are thankful for good-will rather than for services, for the motive than the quantum of favor received.

William Hazlitt
Inspirational, Favors, Quantum
William Hazlitt (1870). “The Plain Speaker: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things”, p.110

If goodness were only a theory, it were a pity it should be lost to the world. There are a number of things, the idea of which is a clear gain to the mind. Let people, for instance, rail at friendship, genius, freedom, as long as they will -the very names of these despised qualities are better than anything else that could be substituted for them, and embalm even the most envenomed satire against them.

William Hazlitt
Names, Ideas, Numbers

As we are poetical in our natures, so we delight in fable.

William Hazlitt
Delight, Fables

There is nothing so remote from vanity as true genius. It is almost as natural for those who are endowed with the highest powers of the human mind to produce the miracles of art, as for other men to breathe or move. Correggio, who is said to have produced some of his divinest works almost without having seen a picture, probably did not know that he had done anything extraordinary.

William Hazlitt
Art, Moving, Men
William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.35

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
Dream, Eye, Doors
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1806, Delphi Classics

The love of fame is almost another name for the love of excellence; or it is the ambition to attain the highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest authority, that of time.

William Hazlitt
Love, Ambition, Names
William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.269, Delphi Classics

Those who have the largest hearts have the soundest understandings; and they are the truest philosophers who can forget themselves.

William Hazlitt
Wisdom, Heart, Understanding

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