William Hazlitt Quotes

434 Sourced Quotes

The same reason makes a man a religious enthusiast that makes a man an enthusiast in any other way... an uncomfortable mind in an uncomfortable body.

William Hazlitt
Honesty is one part of eloquence. We persuade others by being in earnest ourselves.

William Hazlitt
The fear of punishment may be necessary to the suppression of vice; but it also suspends the finer motives of virtue.

William Hazlitt
The most fluent talkers or most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers.

William Hazlitt
Poverty, when it is voluntary, is never despicable, but takes an heroical aspect.

William Hazlitt
Humour is the making others act or talk absurdly and unconsciously; wit is the pointing out and ridiculing that absurdity consciously, and with more or less ill-nature.

William Hazlitt
A King (as such) is not a great man. He has great power, but it is not his own.

William Hazlitt
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
Those are ever the most ready to do justice to others, who feel that the world has done them justice.

William Hazlitt
Habit in most cases hardens and encrusts by taking away the keener edge of our sensations: but does it not in others quicken and refine, by giving a mechanical facility and by engrafting an acquired sense?

William Hazlitt
By conversing with the mighty dead, we imbibe sentiment with knowledge. We become strongly attached to those who can no longer either hurt or serve us, except through the influence which they exert over the mind. We feel the presence of that power which gives immortality to human thoughts and actions, and catch the flame of enthusiasm from all nations and ages.

William Hazlitt
A person who talks with equal vivacity on every subject, excites no interest in any. Repose is as necessary in conversation as in a picture.

William Hazlitt
There are some persons who never succeed from being too indolent to undertake anything; and others who regularly fail, because the instant they find success in their power, they grow indifferent, and give over the attempt.

William Hazlitt
The history of mankind is a romance, a mask, a tragedy, constructed upon the principles of POETICAL JUSTICE; it is a noble or royal hunt, in which what is sport to the few is death to the many, and in which the spectators halloo and encourage the strong to set upon the weak, and cry havoc in the chase, though they do not share in the spoil.

William Hazlitt