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William Hazlitt Quotes


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Rules and models destroy genius and art.
[Art]

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

Sheridan once said of some speech, in his acute, sarcastic way, that "it contained a great deal both of what was new and what was true; but that what was new was not true, and what was true was not new."
[Speech]

Silence is one great art of conversation.
[Conversation]

Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought.
[Simplicity]

Society is a more level surface than we imagine. Wise men or absolute fools are hard to be met with; and there are few giants or dwarfs.
[Equality]

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

Some persons make promises for the pleasure of breaking them.

Talent is the capacity of doing anything that depends on application and industry; it is a voluntary power, while genius is involuntary.
[Talent]

That which is not, shall never be; that which is, shall never cease to be. To the wise, these truths are self-evident.
[Truth]

The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much.

The art of pleasing consists in being pleased. To be amiable is to be satisfied with one's self and others.

The best part of our lives we pass in counting on what is to come.
[The Present]

The busier we are the more leisure we have.

The confession of our failings is a thankless office. It savors less of sincerity or modesty than of ostentation. It seems as if we thought our weaknesses as good as other people's virtues.

The difference between the vanity of a Frenchman and an Englishman seems to be this: The one thinks everything right that is French, the other thinks everything wrong that is not English.

The dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.

The English (it must be owned) are rather a foul-mouthed nation.

The humblest painter is a true scholar; and the best of scholars the scholar of nature.

The incentive to ambition is the love of power.


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