The severest critics are always those who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition.
William HazlittThere are many who talk on from ignorance rather than from knowledge, and who find the former an inexhaustible fund of conversation.
William HazlittWe often forget our dreams so speedily: if we cannot catch them as they are passing out at the door, we never set eyes on them again.
William HazlittAlmost every sect of Christianity is a perversion of its essence, to accommodate it to the prejudices of the world.
William HazlittThey are, as it were, train-bearers in the pageant of life, and hold a glass up to humanity, frailer than itself. We see ourselves at second-hand in them: they show us all that we are, all that we wish to be, and all that we dread to be. What brings the resemblance nearer is, that, as they imitate us, we, in our turn, imitate them. There is no class of society whom so many persons regard with affection as actors.
William Hazlitt