First impressions are often the truest, as we find (not unfrequently) to our cost when we have been wheedled out of them by plausible professions or actions. A man's look is the work of years, it is stamped on his countenance by the events of his whole life, nay, more, by the hand of nature, and it is not to be got rid of easily.
William HazlittTruth from the mouth of an honest man and severity from a good-natured man have a double effect.
William HazlittThe present is an age of talkers, and not of doers; and the reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in the Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, and dote on past achievement.
William HazlittWe are the creatures of imagination, passion, and self-will, more than of reason or even of self-interest. Even in the common transactions and daily intercourse of life, we are governed by whim, caprice, prejudice, or accident. The falling of a teacup puts us out of temper for the day; and a quarrel that commenced about the pattern of a gown may end only with our lives.
William HazlittThe soil of friendship is worn out with constant use. Habit may still attach us to each other, but we feel ourselves fettered by it. Old friends might be compared to old married people without the tie of children.
William HazlittI have known persons without a friend--never any one without some virtue. The virtues of the former conspired with their vices to make the whole world their enemies.
William HazlittFrom the height from which the great look down on the world all the rest of mankind seem equal.
William HazlittA Whig is properly what is called a Trimmer - that is, a coward to both sides of the question, who dare not be a knave nor an honest man, but is a sort of whiffing, shuffling, cunning, silly, contemptible, unmeaning negation of the two.
William HazlittThere are persons who are never easy unless they are putting your books and papers in order--that is, according to their notions of the matter--and hide things lest they should be lost, where neither the owner nor anybody else can find them. This is a sort of magpie faculty. If anything is left where you want it, it is called litter. There is a pedantry in housewifery, as well as in the gravest concerns. Abraham Tucker complained that whenever his maid servant had been in his library, he could not see comfortably to work again for several days.
William HazlittThe assumption of merit is easier, less embarrassing, and more effectual than the actual attainment of it.
William HazlittI do not think there is anything deserving the name of society to be found out of London.
William HazlittIt is only necessary to raise a bugbear before the English imagination in order to govern it at will. Whatever they hate or fear, they implicitly believe in, merely from the scope it gives to these passions.
William HazlittWe learn to curb our will and keep our overt actions within the bounds of humanity, long before we can subdue our sentiments and imaginations to the same mild tone.
William HazlittDo not quarrel with the world too soon; for, bad as it may be, it is the best we have to live in, here. If railing would have made it better, it would have been reformed long ago.
William HazlittTo display the greatest powers, unless they are applied to great purposes, makes nothing for the character of greatness.
William HazlittCant is the voluntary overcharging or prolongation of a real sentiment; hypocrisy is the setting up a pretension to a feeling you never had and have no wish for.
William HazlittWant of principle is power. Truth and honesty set a limit to our efforts, which impudence and hypocrisy easily overleap.
William HazlittWe go on a journey to be free of all impediments; to leave ourselves behind much more than to get rid of others
William HazlittThose who are fond of setting things to rights, have no great objection to seeing them wrong.
William HazlittThe definition of genius is that it acts unconsciously, and those who have produced immortal works have done so without knowing how or why.
William HazlittHe is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe; not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves.
William HazlittA gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles.
William HazlittI have a much greater ambition to be the best racket player than the best prose writer.
William HazlittOf all virtues, magnanimity is the rarest. There are a hundred persons of merit for one who willingly acknowledges it in another.
William HazlittA strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means.
William HazlittA life of action and danger moderates the dread of death. It not only gives us fortitude to bear pain, but teaches us at every step the precarious tenure on which we hold our present being.
William HazlittThe greatest pleasure in life is that of reading while we are young. I have had as much of this pleasure perhaps as any one.
William HazlittCharity, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Next to putting it in a bank, men like to squander their superfluous wealth on those to whom it is sure to be doing the least possible good.
William HazlittThere is something captivating in spirit and intrepidity, to which, we often yield as to a resistless power; nor can he reasonably expect, the confidence of others who too apparently distrusts himself.
William HazlittVulgar prejudices are those which arise out of accident, ignorance, or authority; natural prejudices are those which arise out of the constitution of the human mind itself.
William HazlittHe who comes up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a very low standard of it in his mind.
William HazlittThose who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.
William Hazlitt