Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that.
William HazlittThe way to procure insults is to submit to them. A man meets with no more respect than he exacts.
William HazlittWe uniformly applaud what is right and condemn what is wrong, when it costs us nothing but the sentiment.
William HazlittA hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could.
William HazlittNatural affection is a prejudice; for though we have cause to love our nearest connections better than others, we have no reason to think them better than others.
William HazlittLanguage, if it throws a veil over our ideas, adds a softness and refinement to them, like that which the atmosphere gives to naked objects.
William HazlittArt is the microscope of the mind, which sharpens the wit as the other does the sight; and converts every object into a little universe in itself. Art may be said to draw aside the veil from nature. To those who are perfectly unskilled in the practice, unimbued with the principles of art, most objects present only a confused mass.
William HazlittThose who are pleased with the fewest things know the least, as those who are pleased with everything know nothing.
William HazlittThe 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 HazlittI am proud up to the point of equality; everything above or below that appears to me arrant impertinence or abject meanness.
William HazlittReligion either makes men wise and virtuous, or it makes them set up false pretenses to both.
William HazlittIt may be made a question whether men grow wiser as they grow older, anymore than they grow stronger or healthier or honest.
William HazlittWithin my heart is lurking suspicion, and base fear, and shame and hate; but above all, tyrannous love sits throned, crowned with her graces, silent and in tears.
William HazlittA certain excess of animal spirits with thoughtless good-humor will often make more enemies than the most deliberate spite and ill-nature, which is on its guard, and strikes with caution and safety.
William HazlittThe surest hindrance of success is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the judgment of the public. He who is determined not to be satisfied with anything short of perfection will never do anything to please himself or others.
William HazlittIndolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy. Action is no less necessary than thought to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame.
William HazlittWhen I take up a book I have read before, I know what to expect; the satisfaction is not lessened by being anticipated. I shake hands with, and look our old tried and valued friend in the face,--compare notes and chat the hour away.
William HazlittIt is not fit that every man should travel; it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.
William HazlittNo 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 HazlittThe severest critics are always those who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition.
William HazlittPainting gives the object itself; poetry what it implies. Painting embodies what a thing contains in itself; poetry suggests what exists out of it, in any manner connected with it.
William HazlittEvery man, in judging of himself, is his own contemporary. He may feel the gale of popularity, but he cannot tell how long it will last. His opinion of himself wants distance, wants time, wants numbers, to set it off and confirm it.
William HazlittThe look of a gentleman is little else than the reflection of the looks of the world.
William HazlittI 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 HazlittWe do not like our friends the worse because they sometimes give us an opportunity to rail at them heartily. Their faults reconcile us to their virtues.
William HazlittIt is only those who never think at all, or else who have accustomed themselves to blood invariably on abstract ideas, that ever feel ennui.
William Hazlitt