Quotes by Hazlitt, William

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

Hazlitt, William on adversity
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"To be happy, we must be true to nature, and carry our age along with us."

Hazlitt, William on age and aging
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"The worst old age is that of the mind."

Hazlitt, William on age and aging
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"Life is the art of being well deceived."

Hazlitt, William on deception
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"Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering the weaknesses of others."

Hazlitt, William on deception
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"Reflection makes men cowards."

Hazlitt, William on deliberation
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"A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means."

Hazlitt, William on desire
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"It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter."

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

Hazlitt, William on dress
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"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."

Hazlitt, William on education
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"He talked on for ever; and you wished him to talk on for ever."

Hazlitt, William on eloquence
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"Envy among other ingredients has a mixture of the love of justice in it. We are more angry at undeserved than at deserved good-fortune."

Hazlitt, William on envy
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"One shining quality lends a luster to another, or hides some glaring defect."

Hazlitt, William on excellence
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"The best part of our lives we pass in counting on what is to come."

Hazlitt, William on expectation
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"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."

Hazlitt, William on facts
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"If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory."

Hazlitt, William on faith
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"There are names written in her immortal scroll at which Fame blushes!"

Hazlitt, William on fame
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"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."

Hazlitt, William on fame
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"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."

Hazlitt, William on fame
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"Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes off the edge of admiration."

Hazlitt, William on familiarity
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"It is well that there is no one without a fault; for he would not have a friend in the world."

Hazlitt, William on faults
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"The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with most regret, never did me the smallest favor."

Hazlitt, William on favors
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"Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them to do."

Hazlitt, William on favors
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"I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about."

Hazlitt, William on friends and friendship
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"Old friendships are like meats served up repeatedly, cold, comfortless, and distasteful. The stomach turns against them."

Hazlitt, William on friends and friendship
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"The most violent friendships soonest wear themselves out."

Hazlitt, William on friends and friendship
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"There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain for our friends. It is little better than a piece of quackery. The truth is, we think of them as we please --that is, as they please or displease us."

Hazlitt, William on friends and friendship
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"There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself. We cannot force it any more than love."

Hazlitt, William on friends and friendship
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"There are persons who cannot make friends. Who are they? Those who cannot be friends. It is not the want of understanding or good nature, of entertaining or useful qualities, that you complain of: on the contrary, they have probably many points of attraction; but they have one that neutralizes all these --they care nothing about you, and are neither the better nor worse for what you think of them. They manifest no joy at your approach; and when you leave them, it is with a feeling that they can do just as well without you. This is not sullenness, nor indifference, nor absence of mind; but they are intent solely on their own thoughts, and you are merely one of the subjects they exercise them upon. They live in society as in a solitude."

Hazlitt, William on friends and friendship
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"The definition of genius is that it acts unconsciously; and those who have produced immortal works, have done so without knowing how or why. The greatest power operates unseen."

Hazlitt, William on genius
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"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."

Hazlitt, William on goodness
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"Grace has been defined as the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul."

Hazlitt, William on grace
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"Grace in women has more effect than beauty."

Hazlitt, William on grace
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"Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity."

Hazlitt, William on grace
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"The public have neither shame or gratitude."

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

Hazlitt, William on greatness
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"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."

Hazlitt, William on happiness
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"We can scarcely hate anyone that we know."

Hazlitt, William on hatred
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"Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that."

Hazlitt, William on hope
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"The only vice which cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy."

Hazlitt, William on hypocrisy
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