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
lasts life-is pleasure
The last pleasure in life is the sense of discharging our duty.
None but those who are happy in themselves can make others so.
dream eye doors
We often forget our dreams so speedily: if we cannot catch them as they are passing out at the door, we never set eyes on them again.
journey goes-on behinds
We go on a journey to be free of all impediments; to leave ourselves behind much more than to get rid of others
character decision firmness
There is nothing more to be esteemed than a manly firmness and decision of character.
men law public-opinion
The measure of any man's virtue is what he would do, if he had neither the laws nor public opinion, nor even his own prejudices, to control him.
love may indifference
Love may turn to indifference with possession.
men vices virtue
Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit--or a mask.
men vanity wish
Vanity does not refer to the opinion a man entertains of himself, but to that which he wishes others to entertain of him.
fall pride folks
Pride goes before a fall, they say, And yet we often find, The folks who throw all pride away Most often fall behind.
pride kingdoms sovereign
Pride erects a little kingdom of its own, and acts as sovereign in it.
wisdom heart understanding
Those who have the largest hearts have the soundest understandings; and they are the truest philosophers who can forget themselves.
silly men two
A Whig is properly what is called a Trimmer - that is, a coward to both sides of the question, who dare not be a knave nor an honest man, but is a sort of whiffing, shuffling, cunning, silly, contemptible, unmeaning negation of the two.
stars reality sky
The love of fame is too high and delicate a feeling in the mind to be mixed up with realities, it is a solitary abstraction. * * * A name "fast anchored in the deep abyss of time" is like a star twinkling in the firmament, cold, silent, distant, but eternal and sublime; and our transmitting one to posterity is as if we should contemplate our translation to the skies.