A collection of quotes by William Hazlitt on listening, respect, art, literary, hypocrisy, soul, reading, books, fear, life, laughter, hate, satire, love and repentance.
55 Notable Quotes By William Hazlitt, The Finest Art Critic
William Hazlitt was an English philosopher, literary and drama critic, writer, painter, journalist, art critic and social commentator, who lived from 1778 to 1830 and is often included among the greatest essayists and literary critics to have ever lived. He studied for two years at the New College at Hackney and studied philosophy afterwards. However, it was as a writer and critic that he truly gained recognition. Hazlitt became friends with some of the leading literary figures of the time like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth and Mary Lamb among others. Some of his most well-known works include ‘The Round Table: A Collection of Essays on Literature’, ‘Men and Manners’, ‘Table Talk’, ‘Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays’, ‘The Spirit of the Age’, ‘Notes of a Journey Through France and Italy’, ‘Liber Amoris’ and ‘A View of the English Stage’ among others. Much of his work has not become as popular as it should have been and tragically, a lot of his work has been out of print for some time. However, his stature as one of the greatest critics in the English language has not diminished. Here are some of his more famous quotes that have been excerpted from his novels, books and writings. Read on the thoughts, sayings and quotations by William Hazlitt that would certainly appeal you.
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.
William Hazlitt
Love turns, with little indulgence, to indifference or disgust: hatred alone is immortal.
The world loves to be amused by hollow professions, to be deceived by flattering appearances, to live in a state of hallucination; and can forgive everything but the plain, downright, simple, honest truth.
William Hazlitt
The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much.
Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the color in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty, and your animal spirits.
William Hazlitt
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.
Pure good soon grows insipid, wants variety and spirit. Pain is a bittersweet, which never surfeits. Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust. Hatred alone is immortal.
Modern fanaticism thrives in proportion to the quanitity of contradictions and nonsense it poures down the throats of the gaping multitude, and the jargon and mysticism it offers to their wonder and credulity.
William Hazlitt
The difference between the vanity of a Frenchman and an Englishman is this: The one thinks everything right that is French, while the other thinks everything wrong that is not English.
William Hazlitt
The old maxim... "there are three things necessary to success in life--Impudence! Impudence! Impudence!
William Hazlitt
No truly great person ever thought themselves so.
William Hazlitt
Any one may mouth out a passage with theatrical cadence or get upon stilts to tell his thoughts. But to write or speak with propriety and simplicity is a more difficult task.
Violent antipathies are always suspicious, and betray a secret affinity.
William Hazlitt
Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march to dinner -- and then to thinking!
Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes off the edge of admiration.
William Hazlitt
Half the business of modern education is taken up in learning not to be ignorant; a process peculiarly unfavorable both to strength of mind and pregnancy of imagination...
William Hazlitt
He is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe; not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves.
William Hazlitt
As is our confidence, so is our capacity
William Hazlitt
The present is an age of talkers, and not 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 doat on past achievements.
We hate old friends: we hate old books: we hate old opinions; and at last we come to hate ourselves.
William Hazlitt
Rules and models destroy genius and art.
William Hazlitt
Grace is rhwe absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incogruity.
William Hazlitt
The path of genius is free, and its own
William Hazlitt
The most sensible people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world, who argue from what they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what things ought to be.
William Hazlitt
Sacrifices are no sacrifices when they are repaid a thousand fold.
William Hazlitt
I bear the creature no ill-will, but still I hate the very sight of it.
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