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
despair cowardice
Despair swallows up cowardice.
dream hypocrite acting
They are the only honest hypocrites, their life is a voluntary dream, a studied madness.
pleasure wells
Knowledge is pleasure as well as power.
perfection mind opinion
The surest hindrance of success is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the judgment of the public. He who is determined not to be satisfied with anything short of perfection will never do anything to please himself or others.
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.
gossip should said
To create an unfavorable impression, it is not necessary that certain things should be true, but that they have been said.
speak virtue ill
The greatest offence against virtue is to speak ill of it.
evolution tendencies streams
A mighty stream of tendency.
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.
dream fame poet
Avarice is the miser's dream, as fame is the poet's.
antidote diffidence awkwardness
Diffidence and awkwardness are antidotes to love.
hypocrite men opposites
A man is a hypocrite only when he affects to take a delight in what he does not feel, not because he takes a perverse delight in opposite things.