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
self gentleman return
A gentleman is one who understands and shows every mark of deference to the claims of self-love in others, and exacts it in return from them.
beauty-everywhere refinement spectators
Refinement creates beauty everywhere. It is the grossness of the spectator that discovers anything like grossness in the object.
thinking intellectual quality
In love we do not think of moral qualities, and scarcely of intellectual ones. Temperament and manner alone, with beauty, excite love.
sleep drink walks
Walk groundly, talk profoundly, drink roundly, sleep soundly.
country ifs
There is nothing good to be had in the country, or if there is, they will not let you have it.
may stories willing
We may be willing to tell a story twice, never to hear it more than once.
education teaching long
That which anyone has been long learning unwillingly, he unlearns with proportional eagerness and haste.
death dying action
A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death.
death dying cures
The most rational cure after all for the inordinate fear of death is to set a just value on life.
gossip should said
To create an unfavorable impression, it is not necessary that certain things should be true, but that they have been said.
believe envy needs
Believe all the good you can of everyone. Do not measure others by yourself. If they have advantages which you have not, let your liberality keep pace with their good fortune. Envy no one, and you need envy no one.
needs monument deserve
Those only deserve a monument who do not need one.
moon views moonlight
He who would see old Hoghton right Must view it by the pale moonlight.
lasts causes heroism
Whatever excites the spirit of contradiction is capable of producing the last effects of heroism; which is only the highest pitch of obstinacy, in a good or bad cause, in wisdom or folly.