William Hazlitt Quotes

434 Sourced Quotes

The only vice which cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.

William Hazlitt
General principles are not the less true or important because, from their nature they elude immediate observation; they are like the air, which is not the less necessary because we neither see nor feel it, or like that secret influence which binds the world together and holds the planets in their orbits.

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

William Hazlitt
Horas non numero nisi serenas is the motto of a sundial near Venice. There is a softness and a harmony in the words and in the thought unparalleled.

William Hazlitt
If mankind had wished for what is right, they might have had it long ago.

William Hazlitt
Any one is to be pitied, who has just sense enough to perceive his deficiencies.

William Hazlitt
The definition of genius is that it acts unconsciously, and those who have produced immortal works have done so without knowing how or why.

William Hazlitt
Talk of mobs! Is there any body of people that has this character in a more consummate degree than the House of Commons? Is there any set of men that determines more by acclamation, and less by deliberation and individual conviction?

William Hazlitt
But fashion is the abortive issue of vain ostentation and exclusive egotism: it is haughty, trifling, affected, servile, despotic, mean and ambitious, precise and fantastical, all in a breath — tied to no rule, and bound to conform to every whim of the minute.

William Hazlitt
Violent antipathies are always suspicious, and betray a secret affinity.

William Hazlitt
Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity, who drink of that flood of glory as of a river, and refresh our wings in it for future flight.

William Hazlitt
The truly proud man knows neither superiors nor inferiors. The first he does not admit of: the last he does not concern himself about.

William Hazlitt
Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted.

William Hazlitt
Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.

William Hazlitt
Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march to dinner — and then to thinking! … I begin to feel, think, and be myself again. Instead of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or dull common-places, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence.

William Hazlitt
Language, if it throws a veil over our ideas, adds a softness and refinement to them, like that which the atmosphere gives to naked objects.

William Hazlitt
To think justly, we must understand what others mean. To know the value of our thoughts, we must try their effect on other minds.

William Hazlitt
No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.

William Hazlitt
People are not soured by misfortune, but by the reception they meet with in it.

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

William Hazlitt
Death is the greatest evil, because it cuts off hope.

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

William Hazlitt
Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it.

William Hazlitt
The thing is plain. All that men really understand is confined to a very small compass; to their daily affairs and experience; to what they have an opportunity to know and motives to study or practise. The rest is affectation and imposture.

William Hazlitt
We are governed by sympathy; and the extent of our sympathy is determined by that of our sensibility

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

William Hazlitt
Some one is generally sure to be the sufferer by a joke.

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

William Hazlitt
Almost every sect of Christianity is a perversion of its essence, to accommodate it to the prejudices of the world.

William Hazlitt
Corporate bodies are more corrupt and profligate than individuals, because they have more power to do mischief, and are less amenable to disgrace or punishment. They feel neither shame, remorse, gratitude, nor goodwill.

William Hazlitt