William Hazlitt

No wise man can have a contempt for the prejudices of others; and he should even stand in a certain awe of his own, as if they were aged parents and monitors. They may in the end prove wiser than he.

— William Hazlitt

Some persons make promises for the pleasure of breaking them.

— William Hazlitt

There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiless, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself.

— William Hazlitt

Few things tend more to alienate friendship than a want of punctuality in our engagements. I have known the breach of a promise to dine or sup to break up more than one intimacy.

— William Hazlitt

To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it.

— William Hazlitt

We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects.

— William Hazlitt

Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love.

— William Hazlitt

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

— William Hazlitt

I hate to be near the sea, and to hear it roaring and raging like a wild beast in its den. It puts me in mind of the everlasting efforts of the human mind, struggling to be free, and ending just where it began.

— William Hazlitt

The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves.

— William Hazlitt

We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit.

— William Hazlitt

Every one in a crowd has the power to throw dirt; none out of ten have the inclination.

— William Hazlitt

We are not hypocrites in our sleep.

— William Hazlitt

We talk little when we do not talk about ourselves.

— William Hazlitt

If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.

— 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

Mankind are an incorrigible race. Give them but bugbears and idols -- it is all that they ask; the distinctions of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, are worse than indifferent to them.

— William Hazlitt

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

— William Hazlitt

Taste is nothing but an enlarged capacity for receiving pleasure from works of imagination.

— William Hazlitt

Good temper is one of the greatest preservers of the features.

— William Hazlitt

Good temper is an estate for life.

— William Hazlitt

Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.

— William Hazlitt

I would like to spend my whole life traveling, if I could borrow another life to spend at home.

— William Hazlitt

There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.

— 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 practice. The rest is affectation and imposture.

— William Hazlitt

The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings.

— William Hazlitt

To a superior race of being the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem... ridiculous.

— William Hazlitt

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

— William Hazlitt

The player envies only the player, the poet envies only the poet.

— William Hazlitt

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

Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.

— William Hazlitt

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.

— William Hazlitt

The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity: of Spencer, remoteness: of Milton elevation and of Shakespeare everything.

— William Hazlitt

The only way to be reconciled to old friends is to part with them for good: at a distance we may chance to be thrown back (in a waking dream) upon old times and old feelings: or at any rate we should not think of renewing our intimacy, till we have fairly spit our spite, said, thought, and felt all the ill we can of each other.

— William Hazlitt

The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do, just as one pleases. We go on a journey chiefly to be free of all impediments and of all inconveniences; to leave ourselves behind, much more to get rid of others.

— William Hazlitt

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.

— William Hazlitt