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
men genius virtue
Death cancels everything but truth; and strips a man of everything but genius and virtue. It is a sort of natural canonization.
poverty aspect despicable
Poverty, when it is voluntary, is never despicable, but takes an heroical aspect.
character conceited ignorant
Anyone must be mainly ignorant or thoughtless, who is surprised at everything he sees; or wonderfully conceited who expects everything to conform to his standard of propriety.
fashion two ends
Fashion constantly begins and ends in the two things it abhors most, singularity and vulgarity.
rewards fruit speak
Learning is its own exceeding great reward; and at the period of which we speak, it bore other fruits, not unworthy of it.
book library world
Books are a world in themselves, it is true; but they are not the only world. The world itself is a volume larger than all the libraries in it.
inspirational mind done
I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at once what, in given circumstances, is to be done, and does it.
pain giving littles
The smallest pain in our little finger gives us more concern than the destruction of millions of our fellow beings.
work doe executing
He who does nothing renders himself incapable of doing any thing; but while we are executing any work, we are preparing and qualifying ourselves to undertake another.
self and-love sincerity
To be forward to praise others implies either great eminence, that can afford to, part with applause; or great quickness of discernment, with confidence in our own judgments; or great sincerity and love of truth, getting the better of our self-love.
betrayal secret violent
Violent antipathies are always suspicious, and betray a secret affinity.
men self mind
Persons without education certainly do not want either acuteness or strength of mind in what concerns themselves, or in things immediately within their observation; but they have no power of abstraction, no general standard of taste, or scale of opinion. They see their objects always near, and never in the horizon. Hence arises that egotism which has been remarked as the characteristic of self-taught men.
atmosphere disease vices
Vice, like disease, floats in the atmosphere.
life art order
Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted.