Quotes by William Hazlitt

William Hazlitt

English writer

Alive from: 1778-1830

Category: Writers (Contemporary)

Quotes 1 till 15 of 140.

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  As is our confidence, so is our capacity.

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  A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could.

• William Hazlitt

  

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  Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering the weaknesses of others.

• William Hazlitt

  

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  No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.

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  The most sensible people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world, who argue from what they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what things ought to be.

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  A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one - they show one another off to the best advantage.

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  A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man.
  Source: Round table

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  A scholar is like a book written in a dead language. It is not every one that can read in it.

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  A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means.

• William Hazlitt

  

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  A Whig is properly what is called a Trimmer - that is, a coward to both sides of the question, who dare not be a knave nor an honest man, but is a sort of whiffing, shuffling, cunning, silly, contemptible, unmeaning negation of the two.

• William Hazlitt

  

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  An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.

• William Hazlitt

  

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  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.

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  Belief is with them mechanical, voluntary: they believe what they are paid for - they swear to that which turns to account. Do you suppose, that after years spent in this manner, they have any feeling left answering to the difference between truth and falsehood?

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  Comedy naturally wears itself out - destroys the very food on which it lives; and by constantly and successfully exposing the follies and weaknesses of mankind to ridicule, in the end leaves itself nothing worth laughing at.

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  Defoe says that there were a hundred thousand country fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse.