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
cleanse either interests reform regularly renew revolution sacrificed whenever
So society, when out of order, which it is whenever the interests of the many are regularly and outrageously sacrificed to those of the few, must be repaired, and either a reform or a revolution cleanse its corruptions and renew its elasticity.
forget largest truest
Those who have the largest hearts, have the soundest understandings; and he is the truest philosopher who can forget himself.
choice man virtue
A man must make his choice not only between virtue and vice, but between different virtues.
events hand rid work
A man's look is the work of years; it is stamped on his countenance by the events of his whole life, nay, more by the hand of nature, and it is not to be got rid of easily.
breaking english-critic persons pleasure promises
Some persons make promises for the pleasure of breaking them.
anyone classical consider education fool himself narrow passed regular
Anyone who has passed through the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.
excellent met people
An indigestion is an excellent common-place for two people that never met before.
excess fact hurtful less modesty
An excess of modesty is in fact an excess of pride, and more hurtful to the individual, and less advantageous to society, than the grossest and most unblushing vanity.
anxious deserving high hindrance obtaining opinion refinement secure standard success surest
The way to secure success, is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it; the surest hindrance to it is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the discernment of the public.
cannot enjoy life prodigal remains tenacious
The young are prodigal of life from a superabundance of it; the old are tenacious on the same score, because they have little left, and cannot enjoy even what remains of it.
absence cannot care complain exercise feeling friends-or-friendship good intent joy leave manifest merely neither nor persons points society solely subjects understanding useful worse
There are persons who cannot make friends. Who are they? Those who cannot be friends. It is not the want of understanding or good nature, of entertaining or useful qualities, that you complain of: on the contrary, they have probably many points of attraction; but they have one that neutralizes all these --they care nothing about you, and are neither the better nor worse for what you think of them. They manifest no joy at your approach; and when you leave them, it is with a feeling that they can do just as well without you. This is not sullenness, nor indifference, nor absence of mind; but they are intent solely on their own thoughts, and you are merely one of the subjects they exercise them upon. They live in society as in a solitude.
inspirational flow action
Everything is in motion. Everything flows. Everything is vibrating.
liars practice effort
Habitual liars invent falsehoods not to gain any end or even to deceive their hearers, but to amuse themselves. It is partly practice and partly habit. It requires an effort in them to speak truth.
die gradually wholly
We do not die wholly at our deaths: we have moldered away gradually long before.