William Hazlitt Quotes

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.

It is only those who never think at all, or else who have accustomed themselves to blood invariably on abstract ideas, that ever feel ennui.

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.

We grow tired of ourselves, much more of other people.

No one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves.

A scholar is like a book written in a dead language. It is not every one that can read in it.

Political truth is libel; religious truth, blasphemy.

Some people break promises for the pleasure of breaking them.

Common sense, to most people, is nothing more than their own opinions.

The most sensible people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world, who argue from what they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what things ought to be.

Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.

The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.

Malice often takes the garb of truth.

Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.

A gentleman is one who understands and shows every mark of deference to the claims of self-love in others, and exacts it in return from them.

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

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.

We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.

When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.

No truly great person ever thought themselves so.

Just as much as we see in others we have in ourselves.

The way to secure success is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it.

Zeal will do more than knowledge.

Landscape painting is the obvious resource of misanthropy.

The way to procure insults is to submit to them. A man meets with no more respect than he exacts.

We are not hypocrites in our sleep.

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.

We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.

Do not quarrel with the world too soon; for, bad as it may be, it is the best we have to live in, here. If railing would have made it better, it would have been reformed long ago.

As is our confidence, so is our capacity.

The multitude who require to be led, still hate their leaders.

A man knows his companion in a long journey and a little inn.

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.

People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because they excel.

Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are disagreeable to others.

The best part of our lives we pass in counting on what is to come.

Faith is necessary to victory.

It is better to desire than to enjoy, to love than to be loved.

Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.

There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an idiot; and an idiot has some advantages over a wise man.

Habitual liars invent falsehoods not to gain any end or even to deceive their hearers, but to amuse themselves. It is partly practice and partly habit. It requires an effort in them to speak truth.

He who comes up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a very low standard of it in his mind.

Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity.

When we forget old friends, it is a sign we have forgotten ourselves.

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.

Envy is a littleness of soul, which cannot see beyond a certain point, and if it does not occupy the whole space feels itself excluded.

There is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body.

Actors are the only honest hypocrites.

You know more of a road by having traveled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.

If you give an audience a chance they will do half your acting for you.