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William Hazlitt Quotes


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Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.

Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.
[Acts]

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 the truth.
[Lying]

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

He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others.

He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies.

Honesty is one part of eloquence. We persuade others by being in earnest ourselves.
[Eloquence]

Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope; and few are reduced so low as that.
[Hope]

Horus non numero nisi serenas (I count only the sunny hours).
[Time]

I am always afraid of a fool; one cannot be sure he is not a knave.
[Fools]

I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country.

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.

I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about.

I should like to spend the whole of my life in traveling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home.

I'm not smart, but I like to observe. Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.

If a person has no delicacy, he has you in his power.

If I have not read a book before, it is, for all intents and purposes, new to me whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.

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

If we use no ceremory toward others, we shall be treated without any. - People are soon tired of paying trifling attentions to those who receive them with coldness, and return them with neglect.
[Ceremony]

If we wish to know the force of human genius, we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning, we may study his commentators.


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