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
honesty earnest eloquence
Honesty is one part of eloquence. We persuade others by being in earnest ourselves.
beauty flames links
The poetical impression of any object is that uneasy, exquisite sense of beauty or power that cannot be contained within itself; that is impatient of all limit; that (as flame bends to flame) strives to link itself to some other image of kindred beauty or grandeur; to enshrine itself, as it were, in the highest forms of fancy, and to relieve the aching sense of pleasure by expressing it in the boldest manner.
ignorance proportion insolence
The insolence of the vulgar is in proportion to their ignorance. They treat everything with contempt which they do not understand.
thinker talkers fluent
The most fluent talkers or most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers.
greatness men people
Those people who are always improving never become great. Greatness is an eminence, the ascent to which is steep and lofty, and which a man must seize on at once by natural boldness and vigor, and not by patient, wary steps.
journey goes-on behinds
We go on a journey to be free of all impediments; to leave ourselves behind much more than to get rid of others
inspirational dull cold
We are cold to others only when we are dull in ourselves.
government law people
Wherever the Government does not emanate...from the people, the principle of the Government, the esprit de corps, the point of honour, in all those connected with it, and raised by it to privileges above the law and above humanity, will be hatred to the people.
reform succeed triumph
It is essential to the triumph of reform that it should never succeed.
stupid selfish mean
There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiless, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself.
order stupidity crowds
Mankind are a herd of knaves and fools. It is necessary to join the crowd, or get out of their way, in order not to be trampled to death by them.
life struggle life-is
Life is a continued struggle to be what we are not, and to do what we cannot.
doe public-speaking commonplace
An orator can hardly get beyond commonplaces: if he does he gets beyond his hearers.
life may way
Human life may be regarded as a succession of frontispieces. The way to be satisfied is never to look back.