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
excel genius labor men profession
Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labor in it, but they labor in it because they excel
excellent met people
An indigestion is an excellent common-place for two people that never met before.
self excellence mistress
We often choose a friend as we do a mistress - for no particular excellence in themselves, but merely from some circumstance that flatters our self-love.
ambition names excellence
The love of fame is almost another name for the love of excellence; or it is the ambition to attain the highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest authority, that of time.
shining excellence quality
One shining quality lends a lustre to another, or hides some glaring defect.
men excellence perception
Men of the greatest genius are not always the most prodigal of their encomiums. But then it is when their range of power is confined, and they have in fact little perception, except of their own particular kind of excellence.
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.
anniversary birthday celebrate man money monuments notice
When a man is dead, they put money in his coffin, erect monuments to his memory, and celebrate the anniversary of his birthday in set speeches. Would they take any notice of him if he were living? No!
work
When I take up a work that I have read before (the oftener the better) I know what I have to expect. The satisfaction is not lessened by being anticipated.
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I should like to spend the whole of my life in traveling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home.
playing
The world has been doing little else but playing at make-believe all its lifetime.
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Belief is with them mechanical, voluntary: they believe what they are paid for -- they swear to that which turns to account. Do you suppose, that after years spent in this manner, they have any feeling left answering to the difference between truth and falsehood?
cleanse either interests reform regularly renew revolution sacrificed whenever
So society, when out of order, which it is whenever the interests of the many are regularly and outrageously sacrificed to those of the few, must be repaired, and either a reform or a revolution cleanse its corruptions and renew its elasticity.
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Those who have the largest hearts, have the soundest understandings; and he is the truest philosopher who can forget himself.