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
world reason said
One said he wondered that leather was not dearer than any other thing. Being demanded a reason: because, saith he, it is more stood upon than any other thing in the world.
faults titles details
The title of Ultracrepidarian critics has been given to those persons who find fault with small and insignificant details.
hypocrite hypocrisy
Asleep, nobody is a hypocrite
religious men mind
The same reason makes a man a religious enthusiast that makes a man an enthusiast in any other way ... an uncomfortable mind in an uncomfortable body.
silly men two
A 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.
stars reality sky
The love of fame is too high and delicate a feeling in the mind to be mixed up with realities, it is a solitary abstraction. * * * A name "fast anchored in the deep abyss of time" is like a star twinkling in the firmament, cold, silent, distant, but eternal and sublime; and our transmitting one to posterity is as if we should contemplate our translation to the skies.
betrayal secret violent
Violent antipathies are always suspicious, and betray a secret affinity.
gratitude business corporations
They [corporations] feel neither shame, remorse, gratitude, nor goodwill.
silence say-anything daring
The silence of a friend commonly amounts to treachery. His not daring to say anything in our behalf implies a tacit censure.
class lowest
But of all footmen the lowest class is literary footmen.
harmony hours conceit
There is a softness and a harmony in the words and in the thought unparalleled. Of all conceits it is surely the most classical. "I count only the hours that are serene.".
passion coquetry coquette
An accomplished coquette excites the passions of others, in proportion as she feels none herself.
decision soul
The soul of dispatch is decision.
justice done world
Those are ever the most ready to do justice to others, who feel that the world has done them justice.