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
honest politician born
It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.
shining excellence quality
One shining quality lends a lustre to another, or hides some glaring defect.
love sarcasm gains
Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love.
jokes sufferers
Some one is generally sure to be the sufferer by a joke.
power crowds dirt
Every one in a crowd has the power to throw dirt; none out of ten have the inclination.
hope cutting evil
Death is the greatest evil, because it cuts off hope.
dignity fortune reverse
The greatest reverses of fortune are the most easily borne from a sort of dignity belonging to them.
taste improvement diffusion
The diffusion of taste is not the same thing as the improvement of taste.
taste knows
Those who are pleased with the fewest things know the least, as those who are pleased with everything know nothing.
religious time pain
Most of the methods for measuring the lapse of time have, I believe, been the contrivance of monks and religious recluses, who, finding time hang heavy on their hands, were at some pains to see how they got rid of it.
understanding littles reason
In what we really understand, we reason but little.
scholarship knows
Learning is the knowledge of that which none but the learned know.
attachment long age
We do not die wholly at our deaths: we have mouldered away gradually long before. Faculty after faculty, interest after interest, attachment after attachment disappear: we are torn from ourselves while living.
quality use good-intentions
We all wear some disguise, make some professions, use some artifice, to set ourselves off as being better than we are; and yet it is not denied that we have some good intentions and praiseworthy qualities at bottom.