William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt
William Hazlittwas an English writer, drama and literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell. He is also acknowledged as the finest art critic of his age. Despite his high standing among historians of literature and art, his work is currently little read and mostly out of print...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionCritic
Date of Birth10 April 1778
dream fame poet
Avarice is the miser's dream, as fame is the poet's.
antidote diffidence awkwardness
Diffidence and awkwardness are antidotes to love.
hypocrite men opposites
A man is a hypocrite only when he affects to take a delight in what he does not feel, not because he takes a perverse delight in opposite things.
beauty-everywhere refinement spectators
Refinement creates beauty everywhere. It is the grossness of the spectator that discovers anything like grossness in the object.
sleep drink walks
Walk groundly, talk profoundly, drink roundly, sleep soundly.
country ifs
There is nothing good to be had in the country, or if there is, they will not let you have it.
destiny birth-place ties
Those who wish to forget painful thoughts do well to absent themselves for a while from, the ties and objects that recall them; but we can be said only to fulfill our destiny in the place that gave us birth.
tired boredom painting
You are never tired of painting, because you have to set down not what you know already, but what you have just discovered.
honesty party men
An honest man is respected by all parties.
humanity dens mets
Humanity is to be met with in a den of robbers.
forever last words
Words are the only things that last forever
art bright common compose conveyed fine gentle lesson letting lives mind neglect note rest side slip smiles sunny time turning watch
What a fine lesson is conveyed to the mind -- to take no note of time but by its benefits, to watch only for the smiles and neglect the frowns of fate, to compose our lives of bright and gentle moments, turning always to the sunny side of things, and letting the rest slip for our imaginations, unheeded or forgotten! How different from the common art of self-tormenting!
absence cannot care complain exercise feeling friends-or-friendship good intent joy leave manifest merely neither nor persons points society solely subjects understanding useful worse
There are persons who cannot make friends. Who are they? Those who cannot be friends. It is not the want of understanding or good nature, of entertaining or useful qualities, that you complain of: on the contrary, they have probably many points of attraction; but they have one that neutralizes all these --they care nothing about you, and are neither the better nor worse for what you think of them. They manifest no joy at your approach; and when you leave them, it is with a feeling that they can do just as well without you. This is not sullenness, nor indifference, nor absence of mind; but they are intent solely on their own thoughts, and you are merely one of the subjects they exercise them upon. They live in society as in a solitude.
poetry remember poetry-is
Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life.