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
fool knaves wells
I am always afraid of a fool. One cannot be sure that he is not a knave as well.
passion men letters
The love of letters is the forlorn hope of the man of letters. His ruling passion is the love of fame.
death causes youth
The fear of approaching death, which in youth we imagine must cause inquietude to the aged, is very seldom the source of much uneasiness.
critics composition originals
The severest critics are always those who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition.
business self owing
Success in business is seldom owing to uncommon talents or original power which is untractable and self-willed, but to the greatest degree of commonplace capacity.
book reading life-is
The greatest pleasure in life is that of reading while we are young. I have had as much of this pleasure perhaps as any one.
book heart wind
Books wind into the heart.
kings acting beggar
To-day kings, to-marrow beggars, it is only when they are themselves that they are nothing.
friendship children ties
The soil of friendship is worn out with constant use. Habit may still attach us to each other, but we feel ourselves fettered by it. Old friends might be compared to old married people without the tie of children.
friendship age youth
The youth is better than the old age of friendship.
giving doe habit
Habit in most cases hardens and encrusts by taking away the keener edge of our sensations: but does it not in others quicken and refine, by giving a mechanical facility and by engrafting an acquired sense?
distance men numbers
Every man, in judging of himself, is his own contemporary. He may feel the gale of popularity, but he cannot tell how long it will last. His opinion of himself wants distance, wants time, wants numbers, to set it off and confirm it.
men excellence ignorant
A great man la an abstraction of some one excellence; but whoever fancies himself an abstraction of excellence, so far from being great, may be sure that he is a blockhead, equally ignorant of excellence or defect of himself or others.
tired people grows
We grow tired of ourselves, much more of other people.