When I am in the country I wish to vegetate like the country.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Country
A knave thinks himself a fool all the time he is not making a fool of some other person.
—William Hazlitt
Few people make much noise after their deaths who did not do so while living.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Fame
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
Topics: Career
It is remarkable how virtuous and generously disposed every one is at a play. We uniformly applaud what is right, and condemn what is wrong, when it costs us nothing but the sentiment.
—William Hazlitt
If you think you can win, you can. Faith is necessary to victory.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Belief, Faith, Victory
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 esteem but by lowering their neighbors.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Man
He talked on for ever; and you wished him to talk on for ever.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Eloquence, Conversation
We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Effort, Performance
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
Topics: Politics, Politicians
To a superior race of being the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem… ridiculous.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Virtue, Virtues
Science is the desire to know causes.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Science
There are only three pleasures in life pure and lasting, and all derived from inanimate things-books, pictures and the face of nature.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Nature
One shining quality lends a luster to another, or hides some glaring defect.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Excellence
There is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Sincerity, Candor
Let a man’s talents or virtues be what they may, he will only feel satisfaction in his society as he is satisfied in himself.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Awareness, Realization, Acceptance
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
Topics: Education
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
Topics: Happiness
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
Topics: Hypocrisy
Talent is the capacity of doing anything that depends on application and industry; it is a voluntary power, while genius is involuntary.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Talent
A scholar is like a book written in a dead language. It is not every one that can read in it.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Language
Grace has been defined, the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Grace
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
Topics: Friendship
No man is truly great who is great only in his own lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Posterity, Greatness, Greatness & Great Things
Poverty is the test of civility and the touchstone of friendship.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Poverty
There is room enough in human life to crowd almost every art and science in it. If we pass “no day without a line”—visit no place without the company of a book—we may with ease fill libraries, or empty them of their contents. The more we do, the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Busy, Rest, Industry, Positive Attitudes, Mindsets, Leisure, Action, Optimism
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. We cannot force love.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Love
Death cancels everything but truth; and strips a man of everything but genius and virtue. It is a sort of natural canonization. It makes the meanest of us sacred—it installs the poet in his immortality, and lifts him to the skies. Death is the greatest assayer of the sterling ore of talent. At his touch the dropsy particles fall off, the irritable, the personal, the gross, and mingle with the dust—the finer and more ethereal part mounts with winged spirit to watch over our latest memory, and protect our bones from insult. We consign the least worthy qualities to oblivion, and cherish the nobler and imperishable nature with double pride and fondness.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Death, Dying
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
Topics: Judgment
The art of pleasing consists in being pleased. To be amiable is to be satisfied with one’s self and others.
—William Hazlitt
Topics: Pleasing, Persuasion
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Arthur Helps British Essayist, Historian
- A. C. Benson English Essayist
- Joseph Addison English Poet, Playwright, Politician
- Thomas de Quincey English Essayist, Critic
- Samuel Johnson British Essayist
- Edwin Percy Whipple American Literary Critic
- John Dryden English Poet
- Giacomo Leopardi Italian Poet
- Miguel de Unamuno Spanish Philosopher, Writer
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge English Poet
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