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
cannot errors lasting ourselves
It is not the errors of others, but our own miscalculations, on which we wreak our lasting vengeance. It is ourselves that we cannot forgive.
cannot good great management miss opportunity saying trusted
Those who cannot miss an opportunity of saying a good thing . . . are not to be trusted with the management of any great question.
anticipate cannot exactly mere spite worse
Never anticipate evils; or, because you cannot have things exactly as you wish, make them out worse than they are, through mere spite and willfulness.
cannot classes distinct hands imagined might money observed people
There are two classes of people that I have observed who are not so distinct as might be imagined -- those who cannot keep their own money in their hands, and those who cannot keep their hands from other people's.
animal anxious bigger cannot dimensions grasp individual infinite man narrow object wishes within
Man is an individual animal with narrow faculties, but infinite desires, which he is anxious to concentrate in some one object within the grasp of his imagination, and where, if he cannot be all that he wishes himself, he may at least contemplate his own pride, vanity, and passions, displayed in their most extravagant dimensions in a being no bigger and no better than himself.
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.
allowed counting distance leisure march simple steps
Surely, nothing is more simple than Time. His march is straightforward; but we should have leisure allowed us to look back upon the distance we have come, and not be counting his steps every moment.
body clear held mind obvious therefore
The accomplishments of the body are obvious and clear to all: those of the mind are recondite and doubtful, and therefore grudgingly acknowledged, or held up as the sport of prejudice, spite, and folly.
baffling chiefly consists expectation
The are of will-making chiefly consists in baffling the importunity of expectation.
eagerness learning
That which any one has been long learning unwillingly, he unlearns with proportional eagerness and haste.
against beware branded degrading exercise idol liable power render rests themselves turns
The power rests with the multitude, but let them beware how the exercise of it turns against their own rights! It is not the idol but the worshippers that are to be dreaded, and who, by degrading one of their fellows, render themselves liable to be branded with the same indignities.
fewer good immediate impression judge less men objects truly women
Women have often more of what is called good sense then men. They have fewer pretensions; are less implicated in theories; and judge of objects more from their immediate and involuntary impression on the mind, and, therefore, more truly and naturally.
good repent
We as often repent the good we have done as the ill.