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
absent account afterwards anywhere borrow destiny forget fulfil gave life objects painful recall spend themselves ties travelling wish
Those who wish to forget painful thoughts, do well to absent themselves for a while from the ties and objects that recall them; but we can be said only to fulfil our destiny in the place that gave us birth. I should on this account like well enough to spend the whole of my life in travelling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home!
landscape painting misanthropy
Landscape painting is the obvious resource of misanthropy.
tired boredom painting
You are never tired of painting, because you have to set down not what you know already, but what you have just discovered.
mind world painting
Painters... are the most lively observers of what passes in the world about them, and the closest observers of what passes in their own minds.
pain men justice
There is evil poured upon the earth from the overflowings of corruption-- Sickness, and poverty, and pain, and guilt, and madness, and sorrow; But, as the water from a fountain riseth and sinketh to its level, Ceaselessly toileth justice to equalize the lots of men.
painter scholar
The humblest painter is a true scholar; and the best of scholars the scholar of nature.
pain hate hatred
Pure good soon grows insipid, wants variety and spirit. Pain is a bittersweet, which never surfeits. Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust. Hatred alone is immortal.
giving poetry painting
Painting gives the object itself; poetry what it implies. Painting embodies what a thing contains in itself; poetry suggests what exists out of it, in any manner connected with it.
pain power pleasure
Power is pleasure; and pleasure sweetens pain.
religious time pain
Most of the methods for measuring the lapse of time have, I believe, been the contrivance of monks and religious recluses, who, finding time hang heavy on their hands, were at some pains to see how they got rid of it.
pain giving bears
A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death. It not only gives us fortitude to bear pain, but teaches us at every step the precarious tenure on which we hold our present being.
pain giving littles
The smallest pain in our little finger gives us more concern than the destruction of millions of our fellow beings.
life success pain
Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity.
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!