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.
William HazlittIt might be argued, that to be a knave is the gift of fortune, but to play the fool to advantage it is necessary to be a learned man.
William HazlittTo display the greatest powers, unless they are applied to great purposes, makes nothing for the character of greatness.
William HazlittThe poetical impression of any object is that uneasy, exquisite sense of beauty or power that cannot be contained within itself; that is impatient of all limit; that (as flame bends to flame) strives to link itself to some other image of kindred beauty or grandeur; to enshrine itself, as it were, in the highest forms of fancy, and to relieve the aching sense of pleasure by expressing it in the boldest manner.
William Hazlitt