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
self excellence mistress
We often choose a friend as we do a mistress - for no particular excellence in themselves, but merely from some circumstance that flatters our self-love.
anyone dies gap leaves others trying
When a person dies who does any one thing better than anyone else in the world, which so many others are trying to do well, it leaves a gap in society.
class proud meanness
I am proud up to the point of equality; everything above or below that appears to me arrant impertinence or abject meanness.
believe hypocrite practice
He is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe; not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves.
men excellence ignorant
A great man la an abstraction of some one excellence; but whoever fancies himself an abstraction of excellence, so far from being great, may be sure that he is a blockhead, equally ignorant of excellence or defect of himself or others.
art character exercise
A taste for liberal art is necessary to complete the character of a gentleman, Science alone is hard and mechanical. It exercises the understanding upon things out of ourselves, while it leaves the affections unemployed, or engrossed with our own immediate, narrow interests.
lying force acknowledgement
Lying is the strongest acknowledgement of the force of truth.
lying hate eye
I am not, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, a good-natured man; that is, many things annoy me besides what interferes with my own ease and interest. I hate a lie; a piece of injustice wounds me to the quick, though nothing but the report of it reach me. Therefore I have made many enemies and few friends; for the public know nothing of well-wishers, and keep a wary eye on those who would reform them.
art lying hypocrisy
As hypocrisy is said to be the highest compliment to virtue, the art of lying is the strongest acknowledgment of the force of truth.
lying men reputation
A man's reputation is not in his own keeping, but lies at the mercy of the profligacy of others. Calumny requires no proof.
thinking quality complaining
The best way to make ourselves agreeable to others is by seeming to think them so. If we appear fully sensible of their good qualities they will not complain of the want of them in us.
art philosophy lying
He who expects from a great name in politics, in philosophy, in art, equal greatness in other things, is little versed in human nature. Our strength lies in our weakness. The learned in books are ignorant of the world. He who is ignorant of books is often well acquainted with other things; for life is of the same length in the learned and unlearned; the mind cannot be idle; if it is not taken up with one thing, it attends to another through choice or necessity; and the degree of previous capacity in one class or another is a mere lottery.
wisdom heart understanding
Those who have the largest hearts have the soundest understandings; and they are the truest philosophers who can forget themselves.
change constant learn left leisure objects outward respect
Those who from a constant change and dissipation of outward objects have not a moment's leisure left for their own thoughts, can feel no respect for themselves, and learn little consideration for humanity.