Quotessence
Home / Authors / William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt

William Hazlitt Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenIfsMindWorldThinkingMayPeopleGivingPersonsWellsArtKnowsLittlesOpinionFeelsVirtueLifeBookObjectsPassion

Famous William Hazlitt Quotes

“There are persons who are never easy unless they are putting your books and papers in order--that is, according to their notions of the matter--and hide things lest they should be lost, where neither the owner nor anybody else can find them. This is a sort of magpie faculty. If anything is left where you want it, it is called litter. There is a pedantry in housewifery, as well as in the gravest concerns. Abraham Tucker complained that whenever his maid servant had been in his library, he could not see comfortably to work again for several days.”

IfsWantShouldWellsPersonsBookMatterOrderLostLeftEasyPaperConcernNotionLibraryServantOwnersFacultyPapersAbrahamMaidsPedantryMagpies
Author:William Hazlitt
Create image

“He who expects from a great name in politics, in philosophy, in art, equal greatness in other things, is little versed in human nature. Our strength lies in our weakness. The learned in books are ignorant of the world. He who is ignorant of books is often well acquainted with other things; for life is of the same length in the learned and unlearned; the mind cannot be idle; if it is not taken up with one thing, it attends to another through choice or necessity; and the degree of previous capacity in one class or another is a mere lottery.”

IfsWorldMindHumansWellsLittlesArtBookPhilosophyLife IsLyingChoicesNamesClassTakenOne ThingHuman NatureGreatnessEqualDegreesWeaknessCapacityMereIgnorantLengthIdleLotteryVersatility
Book:Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
Create image

“I am not, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, a good-natured man; that is, many things annoy me besides what interferes with my own ease and interest. I hate a lie; a piece of injustice wounds me to the quick, though nothing but the report of it reach me. Therefore I have made many enemies and few friends; for the public know nothing of well-wishers, and keep a wary eye on those who would reform them.”

KnowsMenWellsMadeEyeLyingHateTermInterestMy OwnEnemyPiecesOrdinaryI HateInjusticeWoundsReformEaseReportsAnnoyingInterfereFew Friends
Book:The plain speaker: opinions on books, men, and things [by W. Hazlitt].
Create image

“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.”

WellsAbilityDegreesWeaknessResourcesFollyLiableMeanness
Book:The Collected Works of William Hazlitt: Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft. Liber amoris. Characteristics
Create image

“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.”

MenLifeWellsDoneCharacterBodyChurchOpinionPiecesDangerousFiguresHe ManNegativeDressesDivinitySentimentsEthicalCompositionAspireRespectableCoveringCarts
Book:Political essays, with sketches of public characters
Create image