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
thinking prejudice barbarians
The true barbarian is he who thinks everything barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices.
prejudice open-mindedness narrow-minded
The most learned are often the most narrow minded.
wise self cease
That which is not, shall never be; that which is, shall never cease to be. To the wise, these truths are self-evident.
perfection stealth approach
No one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves.
country scotch giving
The Irish are hearty, the Scotch plausible, the French polite, the Germans good-natured, the Italians courtly, the Spaniards reserved and decorous - the English alone seem to exist in taking and giving offense.
pride modesty settings
True modesty and true pride are much the same thing: both consist in setting a just value on ourselves - neither more nor less.
philosophy exercise mind
It is easier taking the beaten path than making our way over bogs and precipices. The great difficulty in philosophy is to come to every question with a mind fresh and unshackled by former theories, though strengthened by exercise and information.
mind doe done
I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at once what is to be done in given circumstances and does it. He does not beat about the bush for difficulties or excuses, but goes the shortest and most effectual way to work to attain his own ends, or to accomplish a useful object.
revenge accomplishment suffering
By retaliating our sufferings on the heads of those we love, we get rid of a present uneasiness and incur lasting remorse. With the accomplishment of our revenge our fondness returns; so that we feel the injury we have done them, even more than they do.
our-words belief action
Sincerity has to do with the connexion between our words and thoughts, and not between our beliefs and actions.
sight expression imagination
Love at first sight is only realizing an imagination that has always haunted us; or meeting with a face, a figure, or cast of expression in perfection that we have seen and admired in a less degree or in less favorable circumstances a hundred times before.
vulgarity-is common vulgar
A thing is not vulgar merely because it is common.
eye feet intuition
This is the test and triumph of originality, not to show us what has never been, and what we may therefore very easily never have dreamt of, but to point out to us what is before our eyes and under our feet, though we have had no suspicion of its existence, for want of sufficient strength of intuition, of determined grasp of mind to seize and retain it.
long-ago world may
Do not quarrel with the world too soon; for, bad as it may be, it is the best we have to live in, here. If railing would have made it better, it would have been reformed long ago.