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
men genius virtue
Death cancels everything but truth; and strips a man of everything but genius and virtue. It is a sort of natural canonization.
art book library
There is room enough in human life to crowd almost every art and science in it. If we pass ""no day without a line""-visit no place without the company of a book-we may with ease fill libraries or empty them of their contents. The more we do, the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.
mean thoughtful self
What I mean by living to one's-self is living in the world, as in it, not of it: it is as if no one know there was such a person, and you wished no one to know it: it is to be a silent spectator of the mighty scene of things, not an object of attention or curiosity in it; to take a thoughtful, anxious interest in what is passing in the world, but not to feel the slightest inclination to make or meddle with it.
men thinking self
No man would, I think, exchange his existence with any other man, however fortunate. We had as lief not be, as not be ourselves.
men self mind
Persons without education certainly do not want either acuteness or strength of mind in what concerns themselves, or in things immediately within their observation; but they have no power of abstraction, no general standard of taste, or scale of opinion. They see their objects always near, and never in the horizon. Hence arises that egotism which has been remarked as the characteristic of self-taught men.
wisdom heart judging
The seat of knowledge is in the head; of wisdom, in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we do not feel right.
fall pride folks
Pride goes before a fall, they say, And yet we often find, The folks who throw all pride away Most often fall behind.
mean judging people
You shall yourself be judge. Reason, with most people, means their own opinion.
book order library
There are persons who are never easy unless they are putting your books and papers in order--that is, according to their notions of the matter--and hide things lest they should be lost, where neither the owner nor anybody else can find them. This is a sort of magpie faculty. If anything is left where you want it, it is called litter. There is a pedantry in housewifery, as well as in the gravest concerns. Abraham Tucker complained that whenever his maid servant had been in his library, he could not see comfortably to work again for several days.
character conceited ignorant
Anyone must be mainly ignorant or thoughtless, who is surprised at everything he sees; or wonderfully conceited who expects everything to conform to his standard of propriety.
character personality enough
Anyone is to be pitied who has just sense enough to perceive his deficiencies.
people common-sense community
Common sense, to most people, is nothing more than their own opinions.
giving acting actors
If you give an audience a chance they will do half your acting for you.
art freedom teaching
Rules and models destroy genius and art.