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
modesty speak intimate
To speak highly of one with whom we are intimate is a species of egotism. Our modesty as well as our jealousy teaches us caution on this subject.
critics composition originals
The severest critics are always those who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition.
unjust public-opinion opinion
Nothing is more unjust or capricious than public opinion.
landscape void form
All is without form and void. Someone said of his landscapes that they were pictures of nothing and very like.
facts indifference wit
Wit is, in fact, the eloquence of indifference.
antidote diffidence awkwardness
Diffidence and awkwardness are antidotes to love.
tired boredom painting
You are never tired of painting, because you have to set down not what you know already, but what you have just discovered.
honesty party men
An honest man is respected by all parties.
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.