“He is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe; not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves.”
Source: The Collected Works of William Hazlitt: Fugitive writings
“As hypocrisy is said to be the highest compliment to virtue, the art of lying is the strongest acknowledgment of the force of truth.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“Religion either makes men wise and virtuous, or it makes them set up false pretenses to both.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“We are not hypocrites in our sleep.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“Familiarity confounds all traits of distinction; interest and prejudice take away the power of judging.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“To think justly, we must understand what others mean. To know the value of our thoughts, we must try their effect on other minds.”
Source: The Plain Speaker: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things
“We are thankful for good-will rather than for services, for the motive than the quantum of favor received.”
Source: The Plain Speaker: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things
“It is better to drink of deep grief than to taste shallow pleasures.”
“We uniformly applaud what is right and condemn what is wrong, when it costs us nothing but the sentiment.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“No really great man ever thought himself so.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“A proud man is satisfied with his own good opinion, and does not seek to make converts to it.”
Source: Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims [by W. Hazlitt].
“People do not seem to talk for the sake of expressing their opinions, but to maintain an opinion for the sake of talking.”
Source: Table Talk: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things
“General principles are not the less true or important because from their nature they elude immediate observation; they are like the air, which is not the less necessary because we neither see nor feel it.”
Source: The Eloquence of the British Senate: Being a Selection of the Best Speeches of the Most Distinguished English, Irish, and Scotch Parliamentary Speakers, from the Beginning of the Reign of Charles I. to the Present Time
“The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“We prefer ourselves to others, only because we a have more intimate consciousness and confirmed opinion of our own claims and merits than of any other person's.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“A woman's vanity is interested in making the object of her choice the god of her idolatry.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“Conceit is vanity driven from all other shifts, and forced to appeal to itself for admiration.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“Language, if it throws a veil over our ideas, adds a softness and refinement to them, like that which the atmosphere gives to naked objects.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“The way to secure success is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it.”
Source: The Miscellaneous Works of William Hazlitt
“The more you do, the more you can do.”
“Love and joy are twins or born of each other.”
Source: The Collected Works of William Hazlitt: Fugitive writings
“Life is the art of being well deceived.”
Source: The Round Table: A Collection of Essays on Literature, Men and Manners
“A man knows his companion in a long journey and a little inn.”
“We are all of us, more or less, the slaves of opinion.”
Source: Political Essays: With Sketches of Public Characters
“People are not soured by misfortune, but by the reception they meet with in it.”
Source: Literary Remains of the Late William Hazlitt: With Notice of His Life
“A man's reputation is not in his own keeping, but lies at the mercy of the profligacy of others. Calumny requires no proof. The throwing out [of] malicious imputations against any character leaves a stain, which no after-refutation can wipe out. To create an unfavorable impression, it is not necessary that certain things should be true, but that they have been said. The imagination is of so delicate a texture that even words wound it.”
Source: Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims [by W. Hazlitt].
“We are the creatures of imagination, passion, and self-will, more than of reason or even of self-interest. Even in the common transactions and daily intercourse of life, we are governed by whim, caprice, prejudice, or accident. The falling of a teacup puts us out of temper for the day; and a quarrel that commenced about the pattern of a gown may end only with our lives.”
Source: The Collected Works of William Hazlitt: Fugitive writings
“You shall yourself be judge. Reason, with most people, means their own opinion.”
Source: The Plain Speaker: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things
“We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“No man can thoroughly master more than one art or science.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“Weakness has its hidden resources, as well as strength. There is a degree of folly and meanness which we cannot calculate upon, and by which we are as much liable to be foiled as by the greatest ability or courage.”
Source: The Collected Works of William Hazlitt: Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft. Liber amoris. Characteristics
“The temple of fame stands upon the grave: the flame that burns upon its altars is kindled from the ashes of great men.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“Our notions with respect to the importance of life, and our attachment to it, depend on a principle which has very little to do with its happiness or its misery. The love of life is, in general, the effect not of our enjoyments, but of our passions.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“I do not think that what is called Love at first sight is so great an absurdity as it is sometimes imagined to be. We generally make up our minds beforehand to the sort of person we should like, grave or gay, black, brown, or fair; with golden tresses or raven locks; - and when we meet with a complete example of the qualities we admire, the bargain is soon struck.”
Source: Table Talk: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things
“The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.”
Source: The Miscellaneous Works
“Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“I hate anything that occupies more space than it is worth... I hate to see a parcel of big words without anything in them.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“It is well there is no one without fault; for he would not have a friend in the world. He would seem to belong to s different species.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“Within my heart is lurking suspicion, and base fear, and shame and hate; but above all, tyrannous love sits throned, crowned with her graces, silent and in tears.”
Source: Liber Amoris: Easyread Comfort Edition
“We must overact our part in some measure, in order to produce any effect at all.”
Source: Sketches and Essays
“The Princess Borghese, Bonaparte's sister, who was no saint, sat to Canova as a reclining Venus, and being asked if she did not feel a little uncomfortable, replied, "No. There was a fire in the room."”
“Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use.”
Source: Table talk
“The rule for traveling abroad is to take our common sense with us, and leave our prejudices behind.”
Source: Notes of a journey through France and Italy ...
“I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“There is nothing more likely to drive a man mad, than the being unable to get rid of the idea of the distinction between right and wrong, and an obstinate, constitutional preference of the true to the agreeable.”
Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
“A full-dressed ecclesiastic is a sort of go-cart of divinity; an ethical automaton. A clerical prig is, in general, a very dangerous as well as contemptible character. The utmost that those who thus habitually confound their opinions and sentiments with the outside coverings of their bodies can aspire to, is a negative and neutral character, like wax-work figures, where the dress is done as much to the life as the man, and where both are respectable pieces of pasteboard, or harmless compositions of fleecy hosiery.”
Source: Political essays, with sketches of public characters
“They are, as it were, train-bearers in the pageant of life, and hold a glass up to humanity, frailer than itself. We see ourselves at second-hand in them: they show us all that we are, all that we wish to be, and all that we dread to be. What brings the resemblance nearer is, that, as they imitate us, we, in our turn, imitate them. There is no class of society whom so many persons regard with affection as actors.”
“Good temper is an estate for life.”
Source: The Miscellaneous Works
“There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself. We cannot force it any more than love.”
Source: Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims [by W. Hazlitt].
